PreCentral: Real-time Twitter updates in exhibition mode with Flixi

[News Reporter]

This tip is only for the HP TouchPad

When Exhibition mode was introduced with webOS 2.1, it gave developers the ability to create whole apps or just a subset of features without the typical concerns like power consumption. If you had an app that required updating every few seconds or minutes, such as stock quote or sports score app, you would eat through your battery life extraordinary quickly. However, if you were to know that the device would always be charging on a touchstone with the screen on, you would have a lot more freedom in what you could do. This can be extremely beneficial for social networking apps that require a real-time feed for updates, such as Twitter or Facebook.

In the case of an exhibition-based Twitter app, your best option is

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by Under Clouds Games, available in the HP App Catalog for $2.99 and recently updated for the .  Flixi is not technically a twitter client, but rather a multi-purpose screensaver app that gives you the ability to view multiple types of information on the screen at the same time. This can include the weather, a RSS news feed, the time, your Google calendar, a twitter feed, or more, and can be arranged in one of 17 pre-arranged layouts.

Once you open up the app or switch to it in Exhibition Mode (make sure you have already ), just tap the  settings icon and set up your dashboard as required, selecting Twitter for at least one of your panels. Once logged on to Twitter, you will see an almost real-time update of your Twitter feed in the app. There is no action needed to refresh the feed, it will do all the work for you. But be advised that Flixi is not a full-scale Twitter app. You can only see the latest 40 or so tweets, but you can not reply to tweets in the app itself, nor get access to the history view of a twitter "conversation." While you get quick at-a-glance updates to twitter and even load up a website with an in-app browser, you will still need a full Twitter app or go to Twitter.com to post new or interact with any tweets.

is available in the webOS App Catalog for $2.99 and is compatible with all webOS devices running webOS 3.0.2 or higher