Twitter for Mac 4.0
Twitter for Mac 4.0 includes an updated design with improvements to icons, buttons, and interactions, and it brings a new dark theme to change the background from white to black.
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The Mac Twitter app received a minor update in August of 2015, but beyond that, the app has gone untouched since 2014. The last major version update ahead of today’s refresh was introduced in December of 2013.
That’s good news, of course, but the problem is – it looks like Twitter shipped a ton of bugs and regressions in this release, while still missing some of the latest additions for mobile platforms and the web.
New Twitter app design is much less dense. Seems like a questionable move when most Macs are laptops.
Looks cool but perf has seriously regressed. Scrolling at 5-15fps on a Mac Pro, smooth anims are gone.
But while many users were glad to see the app getting attention, others criticized it for performance issues: laggy scrolling, repeating old notifications, and login issues. If the app doesn’t appear to be totally in harmony with Twitter’s efforts on mobile apps, here’s one possible reason: Twitter didn’t build it.
Development of the Mac app was outsourced to a third-party developer, said Jonathan Wight, a former Twitter employee, in a tweet. The Verge confirmed that the app’s development was outsourced with other people familiar with the matter. One of those people said the developer is Black Pixel, a well-regarded digital studio based in Seattle. Black Pixel’s other clients have included ESPN, Starbucks, and the New York Times, according to its website.
Along with their own acquisitions such as NetNewsWire.
And at least there is now a team working on Twitter’s Mac app — it previously was the responsibility of a single person, sources tell The Verge.
Wikipedia says that Twitter has 3,900 employees.
Decided to kill product, then changed their mind, don’t care enough about it to put in-house engineers on it…
Plus, the 140 character limit on DMs is back, which is a big step BACKWARD. :-P
Wow. I now know why they made “no comments” to our questions on the status of their Mac (and iOS) apps when I was at Twitter HQ with a room full of iOS/Mac devs at a WWDC watch party.
No API for Twitter polls. Still no API for group direct messaging. No sign of relenting on restrictive token limits. Going great @jack
Update (2015-12-31): Nick Heer:
“Hold on there, Nick,” you complain, “you’re saying Twitter for Mac was ‘beloved’?”
Indeed, I am. A long time ago, in a version far, far away, there was an excellent Twitter for Mac client made by Loren Brichter. Not only was it functionally complete, there were little transitions and animations everywhere that made it feel joyous to use.
Update (2016-01-04): David Heinemeier Hansson:
I must admit that I didn’t give Twitter 4.0 five minutes. But in the three it got, I was turned off by lower info density, legibility, bugs.
So how do you downgrade from Twitter 4.0 on OSX? I regrettably had the App Store on auto-update for my iMac
