Twitter announced a subtle design change to its iOS app that may go a long way in both making conversations easier to parse and to join. The change, which looks like it’s a change on Twitter’s end that does not require an update, is to the threading feature in the Twitter timeline, which currently does a poor job of differentiating between standard tweets and replies.
We’ve given conversations a makeover on iOS. When people you follow are in a conversation, you’ll see their replies in a new way in your Home timeline.
This new layout makes it easier to see who's replying to who so you can join in on relevant conversations. pic.twitter.com/xNmnAtQFeI
— Support (@Support) January 31, 2020
A line will connect your parent tweet with theirs, so you know they’re responding to you in particular, and their tweets will also be slightly indented. Twitter started testing the visual tweak in its “Twttr” beta program last year, but now it’s apparently ready for the big time.
Twitter says this “new layout makes it easier to see who’s replying to who so you can join in on relevant conversations,” making clear the company hopes the change will encourage users to reply to tweets and join in on conversations more often rather than just skimming the timeline.
As Twitter said in its announcements, the “new layout makes it easier to see who’s replying to who.” While the feature is only making its way to iOS devices right now, it won’t be exclusively available to iPhone users. When asked why the feature was only launching for Apple’s mobile platform, the company replied that the new layout “will come to Android soon.”
