Twitter's Confusing New, but Hopefully Now Abandoned, ‘Home/Latest' Timeline

John Gruber:

First, I had no idea what the hell the “✨” button did before this.

This icon has been there for years, I'm sure. I've used it to toggle away from the awful 'Home' experience and there was a time when it only worked temporarily. After a few days or weeks (felt truly arbitrary), it would switch back to Home. I did try Home for a while but it made following real time events impossible.

I agree that the icon is a poor choice, but it's not the worst... it signifies 'algorithm' fairly well to me, but should toggle to something more appropriate if you're using the algorithmic view.

I was quick to complain about this new 'feature', it introduced so much unnecessary friction to the app. It also broke some workflows for bringing up the side menu, no longer could you swipe right anywhere. With this change it meant swiping right from the edge if you were on the Latest tab, but from anywhere on the Home tab.

As someone who gained access to Fleets on the day they were shuttered, the Home/Latest UI is something I'd have happily missed out on the opportunity to try.