Twitter had temporarily rolled out a new update for the iOS users which had killed off the @names in replies.
However, this move was not very well received by the users, and it drew a lot of flak. So, after a short while, Twitter decided to roll it back and had claimed in a tweet that the update it was just an experiment which was rolled out accidentally. The idea behind removing the @names feature was to give the users a couple of more characters to amuse themselves with, and also the freedom to tag as many users in their reply tweet.
Flak Returns it Back
Though Twitter had whipped out this feature, it received a broad negative reception from the users in no time which forced the micro-blogging company to roll back this feature. Twitter then took to a tweet to announce that rolling out the feature was just an accident and that it was supposed to be just an experiment. The company was quoted saying through a tweet that an experiment around replies had accidentally gone out briefly to everyone on iOS. The tweet said that on the upside, the company received helpful feedback and assured that they were listening.
The User Responses
All the iOS users who had updated their Twitter app to the latest version saw that the @names was missing in the replies and took to Twitter immediately with a sea of comments. The users had mentioned that without the @names in replies it was difficult to tell who is and for whom is the reply when there are multiple people in a conversation. There were tweets saying that the company should let them use @names in replies but not count them as characters. Though it made the timeline a bit clearer, the users would have to tap on the bar at the top of the tweet every time to check who is in the conversation and pick to whom they wish to reply. The users also said that the @names was the USP of Twitter’s tweets and losing on it could possibly ruin the art of the entire conversation on Twitter.
The lack of @names in the replies made it unable for the users to untag other people from the long splinter conversations or even to tag into acts that are supposed to be locked. This was imposed a serious impediment to the functionality of the Twitter users.
Previously, while a user was replying to a tweet, the @names would also become a part of the reply tweet which ate up on the 140-character limit. The new feature was aimed at saving up a few characters by removing the @names feature from the tweet, which will, of course, be displayed in small fonts at the top of the tweet.
However, the company has not yet confirmed if they have completely killed away the feature for good, and if it is planning on bringing it back sometime later. The company is all possibilities is likely to take all the feedback into account and might release a better and a more refined version of the experiment later. But as of now, the new replies feature without the @names is gone, and the iOS users can retire back to their old traditional ways of replying to a tweet.
Previous Updates
Recently in May, Twitter had made announcements that it will be rolling out a couple of new features in order to make the tweets longer. The company was looking forward to stopping counting of the photos, quote tweets, GIFs, and polls as additional characters to lend a few more characters for replying. At the same time, Twitter had also said that it would stop counting the @names in replies, and a user can still tag almost 50 @names while replying to a tweet.
Just a couple of days ago, Twitter had announced a new feature which organized all the replies to a tweet in such a way that the users will first get to see the “best content”, which ultimately brought the Twitter mobile app in line with the desktop version. The company also added that the users might be seeing the replies in a different order, which was based on the various preferential factors.