Twitter Is Planning A Major Revamp Of Its iOS App
by Brent Dirks
September 16, 2013
While we've known since last week that Twitter's official app will be ready for iOS 7, there seems to be some major changes in store in the near future.
Earlier today, AllThingsD reported a little more on what the revamped Twitter app will look like.
According to the report, Twitter will release a small update after Wednesday’s official introduction of iOS 7. But the major changes will come later on:
Gone will be the four tabs at the bottom of the app’s screen, as the New Yorker’s Matt Buchanan first noted, replaced instead by swiping through different content-focused streams. There will be the main reverse-chronological stream that current users are familiar with, as well as a stream for interactions between other users and conversations they’re having. Notably new, there will also be a stream dedicated entirely to photos shared on Twitter (an idea that Facebook included with its segmented News Feed redesign months ago). Essentially, moving through all the streams will be more of a visual experience, sources said, with a heavier emphasis on multimedia. There won’t be the need, for instance, to click inside a tweet to see a photo or a video — it’ll just appear in the stream. (For reference, see how Twitter’s current Discover tab treats some media content.) The overall theme: Look pretty, feel richer, and become far more visually immersive than the text-heavy Twitter we’re all familiar with.And users who love to tweet during their favorite TV show should be pleased with the redesigned app. Twitter is apparently thinking of adding a stream dedicated to TV-related tweets and conversations that will most likely appear in the app:
Twitter has set the stage for this over the past summer, experimenting with a “trending TV show” box at the top of some users’ streams. That might be attractive to Twitter fanatics, many of whom already espouse Twitter as the go-to second-screen app for real-time online chatter around their favorite shows. And it certainly fits in with Twitter’s vision of itself as the “social soundtrack for TV.” But its real aim to is help guide first-timers who have decided to download the app after seeing hashtags or @ signs on TV ads.The revamped app definitely sounds interesting, even though I doubt it has any chance of moving me away from AppAdvice favorite Tweetbot. An update back in late August added the much-derided blue line between conversations. But it’s obvious that Twitter is looking to attract a large amount of new users to the service, especially with its forthcoming IPO.
