Tweetbot 3 now lets you view animated GIFs right on your Twitter timeline
July 25, 2014
Tweetbot 3, the popular iOS 7-optimized Twitter app developed by Tapbots, has finally gained support for animated GIFs.
The app recently received a minor update that, according to its release notes, fixes iOS 8 beta issues, Flickr image previews and other bugs. But as it turns out, while not mentioned in its release notes, the update also adds support for arguably the most beloved image format across the Interwebz, the animated GIF.
I noticed the change when I checked out the longlist for this year's Man Booker Prize, which the prize committee announced in a tweet containing an animated GIF. And lo and behold, as shown in the screenshot above, the tweet shows an image preview with a play icon, indicating that the pic.twitter.com link is for an animated GIF. Indeed, it shows an animated GIF for a slide show of the covers of the longlisted books.
Previously, whenever a tweet containing an animated GIF is posted on a timeline in Tweetbot 3, tapping the pic.twitter.com link would just open the detail view for the tweet itself, whose pic.twitter.com link would also just open the detail view for the tweet itself, ad infinitum. This made it necessary to either open the tweet in a Web browser or else open it in the official iOS app of Twitter to view the animated GIF.
Native support for animated GIFs was first introduced to the official iOS app of Twitter about a month ago.
Optimized for iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 7.0 or later, the new version of Tweetbot 3 is available now on the App Store as a free update or as a new $4.99 download.
Tweetbot 3 was previously updated last month with several improvements, most notably the ability to view and post multiple Twitter images, which was first added to Twitter for iOS late last March.
For more Twitter clients of note for iOS, check out our recently updated Best iPhone Twitter apps AppGuide.
