Twitter’s application might witness a significant change on iOS, as the option to share content to Twitter is nowhere in the iOS beta version that was offered to developers last week, says a report from the 9to5 Mac. There is a possibility that it is just a mistake or Apple may be planning on something new.
Twitter removed from first party apps too
Apart from the missing Twitter icon from the share sheet in first party apps like Photos and Safari, Twitter also cannot be found on third-party apps that use the native sharing option launched in iOS 8.
The report listed a few tweets that informed readers about Twitter’s missing icon. “Twitter disappeared as a sharing option in Photos.app,” read one of the tweets.
Earlier in the iOS 6 beta, the YouTube app was completely missing, but later it was replaced by a better offering directly from Google.
Possible reasons for the missing icon
Recently, Twitter’s interface has gone through a lot of changes with new features such as multiple photo uploads, photo tagging, animated GIFs and full support video being added. This further gives weight to the idea that the company might have thought the existing features in iOS were too limited, says the report. As of now, an iPhone user can share just one photo at a time, and there is no upgrade for video, GIFs or user tagging. When Twitter last upgraded the app for iOS, it was for the iOS 5.
However, with iOS 8, app developers are now enabled to create their own sharing extension that can be seen in the native social options adjacent to the stock Mail, Facebook and Messages applications. Coming up with the new extension, that is integrated with the latest features will be the best option for Twitter, says the report.
Further, an app-based extension will let Twitter upgrade the share sheet on its own terms, irrespective of the full iOS upgrade. Users can enjoy the latest features just by installing the app from the App Store. This will allow users to preview each tweet before posting it live, similar to what can be seen in the Twitter app while composing a new tweet.
