Yet another major change has come to Twitter in the post-Musk era. Served across the iOS – the company announced that its “Home” and “Latest” tabs will be replaced by “For You” and “Following” tabs, and will be pinned to the top of the timeline. This change comes to iOS users, starting today.
In a tweet on Wednesday, January 11, Twitter Support further added that it was replacing the “sparkle” button that switches between the algorithmic and reverses chronological feeds. So, if you are a Twitter user on iOS and wish to change timelines, you can do so seamlessly by swiping between the “For You” and “Following” tabs on your phone screens.
See the Tweets you want to see. Starting today on iOS, swipe between tabs to see Tweets recommended “For you” or Tweets from the accounts you’re “Following.”
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) January 11, 2023
Going forward, the micro-blogging site will show both algorithmic (which includes recommended tweets from people you don’t follow), and chronological feeds (a feed of tweets from users that you follow) side-by-side to make it easier for users to switch between the two. To add to this, the company initiated a controversial change by making the algorithmic “For You” timeline the default feed – which is what users will see the next time they open Twitter on the iOS app.
Twitter remained quiet as to whether it would bring the same to Android, and the old interface is still available on Twitter on Android and the web. The new swipeable timeline comes weeks after Twitter CEO Musk had hinted at its arrival – last year, he tweeted that the “Main timeline should allow for an easy sideways swipe between top, latest, trending, and topics that you follow,” adding that the company would be “making this change soon.”
Couldn’t agree more! We’re making this change soon.
Main timeline should allow for an easy sideways swipe between top, latest, trending and topics that you follow. Twitter search nav already sorta does this after you search.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2022
If you believe that the For You tab is remarkably similar to Twitter’s own algorithmically-driven feed, then you are not the only one. It seems that the Elon Musk-led Twitter has indeed taken yet another page out of TikTok’s book as it ramps up the competition against the ByteDance-owned service. It remains to be seen whether Twitter’s decision successfully results in the growth of user engagement on the platform. It will be interesting to see the user response, especially since Twitter had tried this earlier only to roll it back as a response to user backlash. Already, several users have tweeted their disapproval of the feature.
Screw that. It changes back to “For you” every time I re-open the app. I just want to see everything in linear order from the accounts I’m following, nothing more, which is how it was before you unnecessarily changed it.
— Nick Michalak (RavensFilm Productions) (@RavensFilm) January 11, 2023
