Twitter Starts Rolling Out Tabbed “For You” and “Following” Design

Twitter is making a semi-significant change to its design this week, starting first on iOS. The change, which turns your home screen into a tabbed setup of “For you” and “Following,” is already rolling out for some users.

In a Tweet announcing the change, Twitter says that the new layout will show both “For you” and “Following” tabs at the top of your Twitter app. By having both tabs available, a simple swipe between the two can get you into the algorithm-powered “For you” or back to the chronological “Following” timeline with greater ease.

For a lengthy period of time, the option to switch between these two timelines required you to tap that weird sparkly star icon in the top right corner, then choose between “For you” or “Latest.” The “Latest” option always showed you “newest Tweets from accounts you follow” and is absolutely the best way to take-in Twitter. For those who didn’t know this option existed and have been dealing with recommended, algorithmic garbage in your timeline during your stay on Twitter, I’m sorry.

When I started writing up this news, I wasn’t seeing the new tabbed experience on my iPhone, but I am now and have live-swapped the header image to show it. Do note that Twitter didn’t mention if this would come to Android any day soon. I can’t imagine that this is not in their plans for all platforms, though. This change certainly seems like a move to bring more awareness to the two timeline options instead of letting folks switch one time and then forget, so making the change on Android in addition to iOS only makes sense.

While I’ll never use the “For you” page, my only real issue here is that I pin lists at the top of my Twitter apps that I already swipe between. This seems to be adding yet another tab that I did not ask for. It currently cannot be removed. Maybe one day?