In a recent update, as spotted by Jane Manchun Wong, the Twitter app finally testing 4K images loading accorss all Android devices.
4K viewing of photos seems like the most natural step in the development of apps like Twitter. Social media in general heavily relies on the use of images in everyday conversation. Yet, very few of these apps feature high-quality photos on them. This reduction in quality of photos, called "compression", is brought on by automatic conversion of uploaded media to the JPEG format, which is a lower form of quality. This reduction in pixels is usually done in order to achieve faster loading times for webpages, and Twitter isn't even the only app guilty of such cutting corners. Facebook, WhatsApp, and even the heavily image-sharing reliant Instagram conduct such business as well. Until Twitter came out with a response.
4K viewing, introduced to the iOS version of Twitter in early 2020, was the quick and rational answer to everyone's concerns. The feature works as such: Twitter's interface will display images as usual, in the compressed JPEG form. However, if someone wishes to view any photo on their feed in a higher quality, they can tap and hold on the phone. A small text box will pop up, with the prompt of "load 4K". Clicking on it will load the same photo in all of its high-quality glory, while maintaining the same page loading speed as usual. In short, everyone wins. Except for Android users, that is.
While Twitter's user community across Apple products is no laughing matter, the same applies for their Android userbase as well. The Google Play store claims over a billion downloads, giving everyone a fair estimate of the audience built over Android devices. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before Twitter rolled out such an update for Android. What's unfortunate to note is that the transition process took more or less the rest of 2020 to take effect.
While Twitter has been known to spend a rather excessive amount of time ironing out features (the testing of threaded replies alone took years or trial and tribulation, only to ultimately be disbanded), this wasn't exactly building a feature from scratch. A simple reissuing of an already-present feature shouldn't take this long, and it sets a bad precedent. One of preferential treatment across Twitter's users, stemming from which device they were lucky enough to afford. The world has enough class based struggles without our social media applications further contributing to the problem.
Well, be that as it may, errors have been revoked and we're finally here. HQ images are now freely accessible by all users of Twitter, to a hopefully positive reception.
Read next: Meet Squad: A new video-sharing partner of Twitter
4K viewing of photos seems like the most natural step in the development of apps like Twitter. Social media in general heavily relies on the use of images in everyday conversation. Yet, very few of these apps feature high-quality photos on them. This reduction in quality of photos, called "compression", is brought on by automatic conversion of uploaded media to the JPEG format, which is a lower form of quality. This reduction in pixels is usually done in order to achieve faster loading times for webpages, and Twitter isn't even the only app guilty of such cutting corners. Facebook, WhatsApp, and even the heavily image-sharing reliant Instagram conduct such business as well. Until Twitter came out with a response.
4K viewing, introduced to the iOS version of Twitter in early 2020, was the quick and rational answer to everyone's concerns. The feature works as such: Twitter's interface will display images as usual, in the compressed JPEG form. However, if someone wishes to view any photo on their feed in a higher quality, they can tap and hold on the phone. A small text box will pop up, with the prompt of "load 4K". Clicking on it will load the same photo in all of its high-quality glory, while maintaining the same page loading speed as usual. In short, everyone wins. Except for Android users, that is.
While Twitter's user community across Apple products is no laughing matter, the same applies for their Android userbase as well. The Google Play store claims over a billion downloads, giving everyone a fair estimate of the audience built over Android devices. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before Twitter rolled out such an update for Android. What's unfortunate to note is that the transition process took more or less the rest of 2020 to take effect.
While Twitter has been known to spend a rather excessive amount of time ironing out features (the testing of threaded replies alone took years or trial and tribulation, only to ultimately be disbanded), this wasn't exactly building a feature from scratch. A simple reissuing of an already-present feature shouldn't take this long, and it sets a bad precedent. One of preferential treatment across Twitter's users, stemming from which device they were lucky enough to afford. The world has enough class based struggles without our social media applications further contributing to the problem.
Well, be that as it may, errors have been revoked and we're finally here. HQ images are now freely accessible by all users of Twitter, to a hopefully positive reception.
Read next: Meet Squad: A new video-sharing partner of Twitter
