Twitter brings back reverse-chronological feed on iOS, but with a twist

Updated on 04-Jun-2020
HIGHLIGHTS

Twitter has added a cluster of stars, called “Sparkle”, on the top right of the screen that will let users toggle between reverse-chronological or chronological feed. The feature will soon come on Android.

Twitter is listening and the proof of that is the re-introduction of the much loved reverse-chronological feed. However, the twist is that the feature is not enabled by default and you have to manually set it to see the latest tweets first. This means that Twitter has put both factions – one who wants latest tweets first (chronological), and the other who wants to see tweets that the platform thinks are important for them (reverse-chronological) – in a win-win situation.

The feature is first being rolled out to iOS and will soon be released for Android, the company announced on Twitter. iOS users who use Twitter should see a cluster of stars, called Sparkle”, that looks just like one of the emojis in WhatsApp. Tap on the Sparkle and you will see a window popping up from the bottom giving users an option to choose from either of the two types of the feed style.

Apparently, Twitter will learn users’ behaviour and if they frequently switch to the latest tweets, Twitter will alter default settings to match user preferences. But is there a reason that Twitter brought this feature back? Keith Coleman, Vice President of Product at Twitter, told The Verge that the company found in tests that users who had access to the easy toggle participated in more conversations than average.

Recently, Twitter made some subtle changes to its iOS app. These new changes are made so that profile names and bio is emphasised rather than the Following and Follower count. Under these changes, the font size of users’ followers and following are now smaller, along with the other information like mutual follows, locations, birthdays, and join dates. The changes followed company CEO Jack Dorsey’s statement in which he talked about Twitter revamp so that “meaningful” conversations are prioritised over numbers of followers, likes or retweets.

Twitter for iOS has got data management tools and group message controls. The app now has a new ‘Data saver’ feature which when enabled, will not autoplay videos and initially load images in low quality resolution. This gives iOS users more control over the app and could help them save data. Previously, Twitter for iOS had given users the ability to manually adjust video autoplay and media quality.

https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1075074100412985345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Digit NewsDesk

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