Pinterest is one of those services that is not yet as potent on mobile as it is on the desktop. At this point, I do most of my tweeting and Facebooking on my mobile device – and I’m not alone. But not so with Pinterest. I know for a fact that many of my Pinterest-fiend friends simply choose to not bother with Pinterest at all unless they’re sitting in front of their desktops. It’s just plain easier that way – that convenient little pin button in your browser, multiple tabs to find all of your Pinterest-worthy content to pin, you know, the things that make Pinterest a breeze on the web.
Today, Pinterest is taking steps to make the mobile experience better with updates to their iOS and Android apps. Pinterest for iOS v 2.4 and Pinterest for Android v 1.5 are now available.
First up, Pinterest is unveiling new search suggestions inside the app.
“We’ll now suggest search terms as you type on mobile. You can also see recent searches you made from other places, so if you searched for a soup recipe from your computer, you can do the same search when you’re at the grocery store with just your phone to help you. It’s easy to delete these searches from your settings if you want to,” says Pinterest.
As you can see, searching for something like “apple” now yields suggestions for apple-related content. This also works with user search. It’s a small, but useful improvement.
The other additions to come along with today’s update are a long time coming, quite frankly. With the new versions, you can now @ mention other users. Both iOS and Android users can now get notifications as well.
“Now you can see who commented on your pin or mentioned you whenever you have your phone handy. And if you can’t get enough, we’re also introducing push notifications so you can find out what’s happening without even opening the Pinterest app,” says Pinterest.
The iOS update also brings a couple of new features, including the ability to “pin from more places more easily from the web.” This amounts to a prominent “+” button on the homescreen that lets you enter in the url of the item you wish to pin. Not quite as easy as with the desktop version of Pinterest, with that handy pin button, but it does help. iOS users can also now invite friends to group boards from the app.