Twitter has released a notable update to its Mac app this week, bringing optimizations for macOS 11 Big Sur, in terms of both performance and design. The update also adds support for Apple Silicon-powered Macs.
Twitter continues to make improvements to its new Mac app, which it brought to macOS using Apple’s Catalyst platform last October. Today’s update makes specific improvements related to notifications.
Twitter has finally updated its Mac app with support for a few photo features the social network introduced over the past year.
Twitter for Mac users can now view and share tweets with up to four photos included, something introduced to iPhone Twitter users in May. The update also includes the ability to see and send photos in privately shared direct messages; iPhone Twitter users received this feature last December.
Twitter for Mac now supports Twitter photo previews inline with the timeline. Clicking a preview displays the image at full resolution.
Twitter profiles now support cover photos on par with Twitter’s other apps. With its refreshed design also comes a new, centered icon and visual changes throughout the app. The icon brings its appearance in line with the Twitter-owned TweetDeck for Mac with minor differences.
While there was once a time when Twitter for Mac was presumed dead, it certainly seems alive and well which is reassuring for Mac users. Check out screen shots and the changelog below… Expand Expanding Close
New to Twitter for iPhone and iPad: when you read a Direct message it will be marked as read in all of your official Twitter apps, including twitter.com, mobile.twitter.com, Twitter for Mac, Twitter for Android and TweetDeck. When you read a message on another official Twitter app, it will be marked as read on iPhone and iPad.
We’ve also made more improvements in this version:
• It’s easier to join conversations with a new reply composer in the Tweet details view on iPhone
• Find new accounts to follow by tapping the new people button in the navigation bar
• Richer search results indicate when there are new Tweets for your query and show account results with bios and social context
• Report unwanted Tweets via the “More” button
Now you can see when your Tweets have been retweeted or favorited, when you have a new follower, and when you’ve been added to a list in your @Connect timeline. You can also update your notification settings to see interactions in real time.
Other improvements and bug fixes in this version include:
* When you read a Direct message on Twitter for Mac it will be marked as read in all of your official Twitter apps, including Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for iPad, Twitter for Android, twitter.com, mobile.twitter.com and TweetDeck. When you read a message on another official Twitter app, it will be marked as read on your Mac.
* Support for 6 new languages: Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Thai and Filipino
* Real names and @usernames appear together in all parts of the app
* Fixed character counting bug in the Tweet composer
* Fix for unfavoriting Tweets
* Fix for Growl notifications
* Other nifty fixes and improvements
Twitter for Mac is continuously receiving updates and today it received a highly requested feature: Notification Center integration. Users can configure the setting in the preference window within the app.
OS X already offered Twitter integration, but notifications deferred to the web rather than its native client. It was less than a month ago when the app received its first update in countless months, and today’s update demonstrates Twitter’s dedication to its continued development.
Twitter 2.2.1 is now available in the Mac App Store:
Today we’re announcing a few improvements to Twitter for Mac:
Photos: It’s easier than ever to share photos. Simply click the camera icon in the lower-left corner of the Tweet compose box, and choose a photo to share. If you prefer, you can still drag and drop photos from the desktop.
Retina display support: Now Twitter is even more vibrant and detailed on the highest resolution Mac notebooks. With this update, Tweets will be clearer and sharper, creating a more vivid experience.
14 more languages: In addition to English, Twitter for Mac now supports Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish.
Along with these updates, Twitter for Mac offers keyboard shortcuts, support for multiple accounts and timelines, and other features that you’ve come to love.
You can get this update now in the Mac App Store. Keep an eye out for more improvements to come, too.
P.S. I'm taking a break from iOS to work on Twitter for Mac full time.
While we don’t expect Twitter to update its Mac app with official Retina support anytime soon, iOS developer Deniz Mert Edincik has taken it upon himself to post a patched version of the app that brings Retina support to the majority of UI elements. There was a bad link floating around earlier, but we’ve confirmed that the version in the link below works, as you can see from the screenshot above. To get the patched Retina version of the Twitter Mac App, simply download the file from the link in Deniz’s tweet below and run the patched app…
We reported late last month that Tweetbot for Mac, a desktop version of the popular third-party iOS Twitter client, would likely come soon after the company’s graphic designer, Mark Jardine, tweeted an image of the client running on a MacBook. Today, Tweetbot developers decided to make things official with the release of a public alpha, and we recently got a chance to play around with it. (Blog post here.)
The Tweetbot alpha, which at this point runs on 10.7+ and 10.8 Mountain Lion, has a lot going for it despite warnings of “Bugs! Lots of them.” According to Tapbots, the main goal of the alpha was to replicate the core functionality of the iOS client. Like tapping a tweet in the iPad app, hovering over a tweet in the Mac client provides you with the same Reply, Retweet, Favorite, Share, and Actions button to get access to details, conversations, retweets, and etc.
In addition, like the iPad app, you will find a button to quickly switch lists in the upper right, while a Lists button on the left sidebar will let you manage and edit your lists within the app. The app also bakes in the familiar “Mute Filters” for your main timeline. However, only the ability to mute “Clients” appears to be an option now—with the option for muting keywords greyed out. You will also get Twitter, bit.ly, CloudApp, and Droplr URL shortening options, and all the same image and video-uploading options as on iOS, including: CloudApp, Droplr, img.ly, Lockerz, Mobypicture, Pikchur, Posterous, Twitgoo, TwitPic/TwitVid, and yfrog. Syncing options only feature Tweet Marker currently (iCloud coming soon), while all the Read Later services are present such as bitly, Instapaper, Pinboard, Pocket, and Readability.
We have had a lot to say about the Twitter experience on the new Retina MacBook Pros. The official Twitter for Mac app is unfortunately not Retina-ready and almost unusable on the new Retina displays. Fortunately, we have a Retina update to Twitterific to tie us over, but the Alpha Tweetbot release today is also built for the new Retina display. We have no complaints. It looks great, but Tapbots said further improvements are coming…