Twitter finally introduces Vine for Android

Android app comes with unique zoom feature, Vine now has over 13 million registered users

It may have taken over five months from its debut on iOS back in January, but Twitter has finally released a version of Vine on Android, it was announced in a blog post Monday. 

The news was also revealed, of course, in a tweet complete with its own Vine video:

Introducing Vine for Android. vine.co/v/b3v5h3Piwt7

— Vine (@vineapp) June 3, 2013

While Vine for Android has all of the same features as its iOS counterpart, including Explore, which allows users to find popular and trending posts and Find Friend, where they can invite their friends to join Vine, the Android app also has a new, unique feature: zoom.

And that is just the beginning for the Android app, which will differentiate itself even further going forward.

"Though we’ve been very focused on releasing Vine for Android, we’ve continued to release updates and add new features to the iOS app. As a result, the two apps are not perfectly in sync, but that won’t be the case for long," Sara Haider, Android engineer, wrote. 

"Over the coming weeks, you’ll see frequent updates with new features –– including front-facing camera, search, mentions and hashtags, and the ability to share to Facebook –– as well as bug fixes and performance improvements. Of course, this is only the beginning –– we have exciting plans for features that could exist only on Android."

The app can be downloaded for free by Android owners who are running 4.0+.

In addition to the new Android version, Twitter also made an announcement regarding its user numbers, revealing that Vine now has 13 million registered users.

Vine, which was founded in June 2012, was then purchased by Twitter in October. After it debuted it in January, it initially caused some controversy due to some rather, um, graphic content that some users were putting up.

Basically, people started putting up videos of themselves naked, either alone or with other people. In a really embarrassing move for Twitter, one pornographic video was even accidentally chosen as one of Vine's editor picks!

Twitter became aware of the problem quickly, and tried to weed out inappropriate videos by restricting a number of hashtags, including #porn,  #sex, #boobs, and #booty. Apple removed the video-sharing app from its Featured Section, until Vine was updated with an age restriction for those under 17.

Since then, Vine has been able to maintain a good amount of respectability. It added some new features, including  including making it possible for users to embed Vine posts on the Web, as well as trending hashtags that show users the fastest-rising hashtags on the service. By April, it was the top free app on iOS.

Notably, Vine was also used to create a six second teaser trailer for the upcoming Wolverine movie.

(Image source: https://vine.co)