The official Twitter client for Mac OS X was updated today after nearly two years of neglect on the part of the popular social media platform. While still functional prior to today’s update, the Twitter app remained stagnant in the face of new hardware, such as Retina Displays, and drastic and controversial changes to Twitter’s API.
The version 2.2 update to Twitter attempts to address some of these changes:
What’s New in Version 2.2
Twitter for Mac 2.2 includes several improvements we think you will love:
- Retina display support — Twitter is now more vibrant on the highest resolution Mac notebooks
- Tweet composer — posting tweets is better than ever with a new design, and you can now post photos to pic.twitter.com
- Updated icons — we’ve updated the app icon and overall iconography
- 14 new languages — we’ve added support for Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Turkish
The official Twitter app started life as Tweetie on OS X and iOS. In April 2010, Twitter purchased Tweetie’s developer Atebits and rebranded the mobile application as its own. It then rebranded the desktop version in January 2011. Feelings about the acquisition were mixed, with some excited about a new Twitter strategy and others fearing that the app, which was a user-favorite, would die a slow death without the creative force of an independent developer.
Although Twitter never killed the app, as many feared, it failed to provide adequate updates as the company moved to a more Web-based approach. Today’s release of a new version of the Twitter app may signal a minor concession on the part of the company that native clients are still crucial to the platform’s growth and health.
Twitter for Mac 2.2 is available free for new and existing users via the Mac App Store.
