Twitter has shared new details on its new macOS app that’s coming to the Mac this September, as part of Apple’s new Project Catalyst program to bring iPad apps to the Mac.
First announced at WWDC 2019, Twitter developers have offered new information on the project in a developer blog post, also sharing a screenshot of the new app, which Twitter says is ready to go when macOS Catalina launches.
Nolan O’Brien, Senior Staff Software Engineer at the company, said: “We are excited that Project Catalyst will enable us to bring Twitter back to the Mac by leveraging our existing iOS codebase.
“We’ll also be able to add native Mac features on top of our existing iPad experience while keeping our maintenance efficient as we continue to improve this shared codebase in the years to come.”
Twitter previously offered a Twitter for Mac app having acquired a number of third-party plugins and software such as Tweetie, but the company said that “supporting the two separate codebases was no longer a sustainable option and ultimately we sunset the native Mac app.”
With the new macOS app, however, Twitter is taking a different approach, and utilizing the new technologies made available by Project Catalyst.
“The new Twitter for Mac app will use our existing iOS codebase, rather than being built from a separate codebase, following the same successful strategy we’ve used with Web to expand our supported clients,” O’Brien said.
“By supporting key Mac-specific behaviors on top of our iOS code, we will be able to maintain feature parity across iOS and Mac apps with relatively low long term maintenance.”
Is Twitter building Mac-specific features?
As well as offering the core features from iOS and iPadOS, Twitter confirmed it was planning to introduce some new features that could only be found on the Mac, further encouraging people to move to the client rather than use the Twitter Desktop experience on their Macs.
“Mac users are some of the most engaged people on Twitter, and we are thrilled to introduce them to a new fully native Mac app that has full feature parity with our other platforms plus amazing new features,” Twitter said ahead of the new app’s launch.
“Expect great things like resizable windows with dynamic content, multiple windows support, native notifications, drag and drop and keyboard support. There may even be a few new exciting features we haven’t been able to build for mobile devices that we’re excited to share in the fall,” the company teased in its blog post.
Are you excited about the new Twitter for Mac app? Are you developing your own macOS app based off of Project Catalyst? Share your stories on Twitter using @AppleMagazine, and check back soon for more news on Project Catalyst, iOS and macOS, as and when we get it.
