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Twitter is changing how you engage with tweets in its experimental app

Twitter is changing how you engage with tweets in its experimental app

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Some of the other tweaks come from Twitter proper

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The Twitter bird logo in white against a dark background with outlined logos around it and red circles rippling out from it.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In a series of tweets, Twitter’s Sara Haider announced an update to the company’s prototype / experimental app twttr. First spotted by TechCrunch, some of the additions made to today’s update include a new swipe gesture to like (or reply to) tweets, labels in threads that clearly identify the original poster (a feature that’s already making its way to the main Twitter app), new profile previews that keep you in your timeline, an improved dark mode, and refreshed author pages from Twitter proper.

The app’s purpose is to test experimental features on a live version of the social network, such as a new method of threaded replies and a “show more” button, which is designed to help collapse and organize conversations. In this latest version, engagement icons don’t appear by default. Rather, you can get to them by swiping left or right on the tweet itself instead of tapping to make them appear like you would before. Twitter believes this might prove more intuitive for users and help kickstart friendlier interactions, which is part of the twttr prototype app’s promise.

Currently, the twttr app is opt-in only, with an approval process that takes “a few weeks” before you’re allowed to download the app. Until then, my guess is that certain features that users really grow to like in twttr will make their way to the main app as beta testers continue to try out the prototype version of the social network.