History of Twitter's website
Twitter Web App[edit]
The new desktop website, “Twitter Web App”, is the progressive web application that started out in April 2017 as “Twitter Lite”[1] and originally meant as a successor to the “M5” mobile website with the goal of resembling an app-like user experience.
In September 2018, Twitter started experimenting with “Twitter Lite” as an alternative desktop website.[2]
In January 2019, the tweet source label “Twitter Lite” has been changed to “Twitter Web App”, affecting all tweets posted through “Twitter Lite” retroactively.[3]
In July 2019, “Twitter Web App” was turned into the default Twitter desktop website and the top navigation bar was turned into a vertical bar on the left screen side when viewed on desktop. The ability to opt out of the redesign with an option in the menu was removed.[4] However, using custom user agents (used by browser add-ons such as “GoodTwitter”), the legacy desktop version was still retrievable.
The legacy version was shown to non-logged (guest) users by default until January 2X 2020, while the web app was already accessible through the domain “mobile.twitter.com” (redirected from m.twitter.com too).
Since then, “Twitter Web App” has gone through minor changes such as getting a full-screen media viewer, later with a Facebook-comment-style tweet viewer on the right side. On mobile, the former top navigation bar (“Home, Explore, Notifications, Messages”) moved to the bottom (as known from the mobile app) to be more easily accessible with the hand and to be permanently visible, even when viewing tweets.
Also see[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ Twitter Lite introduced in company blog (April 2017)
- ↑ “Twitter's redesigning its website, and it's really, really white” — Mashable.com (2018-09-08)
- ↑ Twitter user on January 18th 2019: “TWITTER LITE SAYS TWITTER WEB APP NOW”
- ↑ “Twitter makes website redesign official — and no, you can't opt out” — Mashable, July 15th, 2019
