To Streamline Conversations, Twitter Rolls Out Threaded Replies To Its iOS App

Twitter announced a minor redesign to its iOS app that should make conversations flow easier.

The social media is streamlining its iOS app interface to allow users to easily see parent tweets and replies to that post. The subtle change should make it easier for users to decipher between tweets and replies.

Here, replies are made to be slightly indented with a series of vertical and horizontal lines to indicate the order in which they were posted. Essentially, the update makes a Twitter conversation look like thread of connected notes.

This threaded conversation appearance only displays threads for replies from people the users follow. What this means, users won’t have to see their timeline inundated with tweets from random people they don’t know.

The update is a scaled-back variation of threaded replies which Twitter first introduced in September 2018, focused on improving tweet engagement.

Twitter said that this “new layout makes it easier to see who’s replying to who so you can join in on relevant conversations,” making clear that the company is expecting the change to encourage users to reply to tweets, and join in on conversations more often rather than just skimming the timeline.

This appearance may look familiar to some, most likely because Twitter has previously demonstrated it since 2019 with its experimental 'twttr' beta app that has been using it since then.

Twitter regularly uses its experimental beta app to test new features before rolling them out more broadly.

But given the emphasis Twitter has put on beta testing via its twttr app, it's kind of surprising to know that it has taken the social media about 6 months to roll out this conversational feature to iOS.

But then again, that is what the test app is for.

If Twitter's initial result for the test doesn't yield significant improvement, the company may delay the roll out of the feature it is testing.

While this update isn't at all big, it should certainly make it easier to engage in conversations with the people users know. The update can change the way users engage, and create more conversations.

Any update that makes Twitter less jumbled and more coherent is a good thing for users

Published: 
03/02/2020