'Fixing' Twitter for iPad on the 4.2 Beta

UPDATE: This has been fixed as of Twitter 3.2.

For those of you that have been running the iOS 4.2 beta on your iPad, you may have noticed that some apps appear to be running a little funky, namely Twitter for iPad.

While Twitter is a universal app that supports multitasking, the way that the iPad version has been coded means that in it’s current state, it will never save account details, as the way that an application has closed has changed between 3.x and 4.x thanks to multitasking.

One way to fix this is to ‘disable’ multitasking for Twitter for iPad. While this means you can’t zip in and out quite as fast as you’d be able to while multitasking, at least this means you won’t have to enter your account details everytime the app crashes, you reboot your iPad or it simply runs out of memory while using other apps (this happens a lot more often than you think, thanks to the iPad’s onboard 256mb of RAM – in comparison the iPhone 4 has 512mb RAM). Due to the relaxed restrictions under iOS 4.x, you can now modify ‘some’ files on your iOS device without needing to be jailbroken.

The following steps will require the following:

• Property List Editor – part of Xcode which is a free download from Apple.com
• iPhone Explorer – Available for both Mac OS X and Windows for free

If you don’t have a Mac, skip to the end of the post for more information.

First of all, download the above apps. Once done, make sure Twitter for iPad isn’t currently running (double-click the Home button and make sure Twitter doesn’t appear in the multitasking bar).

Connect your iPad to your computer (it doesn’t matter if iTunes decides to jump in and sync – it won’t interfere) and open up iPhone Explorer. Next click the triangle next to your iPad, browse into Apps and find Twitter. Next, find info.plist and drag this to your desktop.

Once on your desktop, double click to open in Property List Editor.app, create a ‘New Child’ and choose an option for the child that will give you a true/false option (I chose ‘Coco Java Application’).

UPDATE 1: Thanks to @thepatr1ck for telling me you can skip choosing an option, and simply put in UIApplicationExitsOnSuspend and later right click and then change value type.

Tick the checkbox that appears. Next, replace the child name that you chose earlier, and put in
UIApplicationExitsOnSuspend. Save the .plist file you just edited, and drag back into iPhone Explorer. When asked if you want to replace, simply click ‘OK’.

And we’re done. You can now disconnect your iPad from your computer and open Twitter for iPad, punch in your account details and enjoy a proper Twitter for iPad, until Twitter themselves updates the app.

If you’ve got any troubles, feel free to drop me a message in the comments below.

For those of you who are Windows users, or simply can’t be bothered doing all the dirty work, you can download a copy of Info.plist I’ve already edited here. From there, simply drag ontop of the Info.plist that already exists as shown above.