Elon Musk’s acquisition of the corporate and subsequent gutting of engineering groups have left Twitter for Mac within the lurch. The app hasn’t obtained a single replace since Musk’s acquisition and is missing many options key to the “new Twitter” expertise (which will not be a nasty factor for some customers).
Twitter supplied a devoted app for Mac for a number of years however dropped help for it in 2018 and as a substitute pointed customers towards the online model of the service. A yr later, nonetheless, Twitter for Mac returned with a brand new model of the app based mostly on Apple’s Catalyst platform and the app’s iPad codebase.
Admittedly, the pre-Musk model of Twitter wasn’t all the time nice about conserving Twitter for Mac up to date. Nonetheless, in keeping with App Retailer model historical past, the app obtained fairly common updates. The present lack of updates – from Musk’s acquisition in October to now – is the longest hole in at the very least the previous 18 months, in keeping with the App Retailer.
The final replace to Twitter for Mac was on October 7, 2022. Musk’s accomplished his acquisition of Twitter on October 27, 2022, and layoffs started nearly instantly.
Because it stands at this time, Twitter for Mac lacks a number of Twitter options supplied by the online and cell variations. This consists of help for Twitter Areas, the power to join Twitter subscriptions from creators, any help for Twitter Blue and its unique options, and extra.
Even past lacking options, Twitter for Mac is rising more and more buggy and unreliable. Customers have complained of an elevated variety of crashes, failed timeline updates, and posting failures. Even for customers who’re glad that Twitter for Mac is rid of a few of Musk’s questionable characteristic modifications and additions, the general reliability of the app is an issue.
9to5Mac’s Take
Whether or not or not Twitter has any plans to replace Twitter for Mac once more stays to be seen. Musk has laid off the overwhelming majority of Twitter’s employees, and the Mac app is probably going a sufferer of engineering employees shortages. Even Musk has admitted that he might must rehire a few of the staff he initially fired.
Twitter for Mac is clearly much more area of interest than Twitter for iPhone, Android, and the online. Most of the individuals who use Twitter for Mac, nonetheless, seemingly fall into the “energy person” class and submit fairly a bit on the platform. Twitter for Mac’s abandonment might push these customers to discover different platforms, akin to Mastodon. There are a number of glorious Mastodon purchasers for Mac at the moment obtainable (and extra to return).
And, in fact, Twitter additionally killed off help for third-party Twitter purchasers – a lot of which have been obtainable on the Mac. This leaves Twitter for Mac as the only real possibility for Mac customers, in need of utilizing the online model or one thing like Tweeten.
There are methods for Twitter to supply an app on the Mac with out an excessive amount of overhead, together with merely letting Apple Silicon customers set up the iPad model of their app on their Mac.
I reached out to Twitter for a touch upon the way forward for Twitter for Mac and was greeted with the corporate’s auto-response for press emails.
FTC: We use revenue incomes auto affiliate hyperlinks. Extra.
