Twitter announces native video support for its Twitter Kit developer tool
Twitter today announced that it is rolling out a highly-welcomed new feature to its Twitter Kit developer tools. The company announced in a blog post that users will now be able to watch full-screen Twitter videos and GIFs without having to open up a webview or leave their app.
Essentially this means that Twitter for iOS now will play back videos and GIFs full-screen with the native video player on iOS that we’ve all come to recognize and use over the years. Twitter notes that the feature is live on iOS now and will come to Android soon. This feature should make the entire video viewing process more seamless for the user as they will no longer have to remember to go back to whatever app they were using before clicking the video link that opened another app.
Twitter appears to be rolling out the update over-the-air, so there’s no work that needs to be done on the user/developer of things. Twitter says this feature is supposed on the latest version of Twitter Kit on iOS 8 and higher.
Here’s what the company had to say in its blog post announcing native video support for Twitter Kit:
From unbelievable sports highlights to powerful first person footage, Twitter is full of unique stories told with immersive videos. Today, we’re excited to announce native support for those videos in Twitter Kit.
Starting today, your users will be able to watch full-screen Twitter videos and GIFs without having to open up a webview or leave your app. Video support is now live on iOS, and will be coming shortly for Android as well.
The best part is, you don’t have to do any extra work. Any app running the latest version of Twitter Kit on iOS8+ will automatically support native video viewing.
We’re committed to helping you tell the best stories with videos, and we look forward to building new ways to showcase rich Twitter content in your Twitter Kit apps.