Twitter is bringing a new design and a number of features to its apps for iOS and Android, twitter.com, Twitter Lite and TweetDeck. The new design includes new icons, a new side navigation menu in mobile apps, refined typography and much more.
Here is everything new in Twitter’s new look in 2017:
- New icons, which look much better than the previous ones, in my opinion. Twitter mentioned that they changed the reply icon to a speech bubble because users thought that it was a back button.
- Profile, account switching, Lists, Moments, Settings & Privacy and Help Center have all been moved to a new slide out menu. This menu is accessed by tapping on your profile picture on the top left. The dark mode shortcut is also available in this menu and not buried in Settings like before. This menu was already there in Android since some time so it is good to see it make its way to iOS.
- Links now open in Safari Web View for iOS users. This is perhaps the best update in the new Twitter app. Safari Web View means that your accounts will be already signed in, content blockers will work if installed and you can use the native iOS share menu too. Although unlikely, let’s hope Facebook follows Twitter in implementing Safari Web View because nobody likes horrible custom browser views.
- Typography is more beautiful with bolder headlines.
- Profile pictures are now round, everywhere.
- Tweets update in realtime with replies, retweets and like counts in iOS apps and TweetDeck. This feature is not available for the desktop website and Twitter Lite.
The updates are already live on Twitter.com and TweetDeck. iOS and Android users might have already received an update with a change log that details the new design and features. However, the updates are being enabled gradually for users so it might be a few days before you get the new Twitter look.
I love the new icons however I am holding back my opinion on other design changes. It seems like the app displays only two tweets at a time now which is something that would annoy a lot of users. Luckily, we still have Tweetbot.
