Following Facebook’s recent venture into search, social networking site Twitter now also aims to strengthen the search capabilities of its site. The company has announced an update to its Android and iOS apps, as well as the mobile.twitter.com website, which will enable users to more easily find the info they want on the go.

The improvements resulting from this update include:

• Discover: All the content in Discover such as tweets, trends and suggestions of accounts to follow, now appear within a single stream. This is available for iPhone users and owners of Android-powered mobile devices. Furthermore, new previews will appear at the top of the Discovery tab, providing users with quick access to Activity and Trends.

• Search: Search results now contain the most relevant mix of tweets, photos, as well as accounts, all within a single stream (similar to the stream in Discover). A new search button (magnifying glass icon) has also been added to Twitter for iPhone (already available to iPad and Android users), enabling users to search from anywhere within this app. (This button was already available in the Android and iPad apps.)

• Connect: Twitter also altered the user experience within the Connect tab, by making Interactions your default view. Interactions comprises of new followers, retweets and mentions you obtain. Those who prefer to view only their mentions on Twitter within Connect, can do so by going to settings > ‘Connect tab’ option and choosing ‘Mentions only’.

• Links: Now, when a user clicks on a URL contained within a tweet, they will be taken directly to that website from any timeline and get to content highlighted on Twitter faster. Previously, your first tap expanded the tweet, as opposed to opening it in a browser.