A new version of Tweetbot for iPhone and iPad should be making its way across the App Store now, and it comes with a great new version of the timeline focused on sharing media, rather than tweets. The new timeline displays images, videos and Vines right in-line, with the tweet acting as a caption.
Tapbots’ Paul Haddad says that the media timeline exists simply because they “thought it’d be a good feature to add, as it lets people view their stream in a different way.”
If this view is reminiscent of Twitter’s cards, that shouldn’t be too surprising. In fact, it looks a lot like the Discover tab on Twitter.com and iPad, though that look hasn’t made its way to the mobile app for iPhone yet. What makes the media view in Tweetbot unique is that it displays all of the media shared by the people you follow in posted order. This provides a true media-only timeline that makes a nice companion to Tweetbot’s other tabs.
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To access the new media timeline, scroll to the top of your main view (tapping on the clock to zip to the top comes in handy here) and tap on the new toggle to the right of the search field. If you don’t see it, scroll your timeline down a bit further, as the search bar tucks away when you scroll down. Tapping on the icon brings you to a view that shows you images and video inline with a header containing the tweet and avatar.
Tapping any images activates the brand new media display mode, which is very quick. This new mode is also active in the main timeline, so you’ll find any image viewing to be much quicker. There’s also a pleasant ‘enlarge and shrink’ animation to go along with it. Tapping videos will result in different behavior for YouTube and direct sharing like Vine. If the video is in a recognizable format, Tweetbot will use its own player to display it for you. If it’s a YouTube video, you’re directed out to the web to watch it.
To dismiss any media, simply tap on it again or flick it upwards.
In a new addition to the tweet detail view, you can now see RTs and Favs as live updating stats. If you have streaming enabled, they’ll update while you watch. Instagram previews also now load again, so that’s good.
Whether or not this new view fits in with Twitter’s new Display Guidelines, enacted with the new version of its API, we’ll just have to wait and see. For now, it offers a cool way to zip through just the media shared in your timeline.
➤ Tweetbot for iPhone
➤ Tweetbot for iPad
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