Today Tweetbot for Mac was updated to include a new media timeline view that turns your feed into a stream of images and videos from the people you follow — a view popularized by apps like Instagram. A "media-only" Twitter view has popped up in mobile apps like Twittelator Neue and Tweetbot for iOS, but the feature really shines on desktop, where you have a consistent internet connection and lots of screen real estate. The new view can be activated by clicking View in the menu bar and then "Media Timeline."

Twitter has attempted to inject your timeline with images and article summaries when you click the "expand" button under a tweet, but Tweetbot does all the work for you. Twitter's own apps also show every tweet, whereas Tweetbot's media timeline only shows tweets with media attached. It's a quick way to browse all the visual content in your stream, and will be especially useful when you want realtime updates during big events. For example, you'll be able to search for something like "Sandy" and see a stream of photos of the storm. But of course, you can also set up a couple columns, one for media, one for text tweets, if you so desire.

Tweetbot for Mac 1.3 also lets you see how many Retweets and Favorites a tweet has received, as well as profile cover images, which have been around in Twitter's apps since September. It's unclear why Twitter has chosen to add these features to its public API, given its stance on third-party app functionality. Tweetbot for Mac has consistently kept ahead of Twitter's own app in terms of features, but it currently costs $19.99. For Twitter fans unwilling to pay that premium, development on the official Twitter app for Mac is finally starting to pick up again, though likely not at a fast enough pace to match third-party apps feature-for-feature.