Rest In Peace 'Twitter For iPhone:' Elon Musk Dubs Label A 'Waste of Space & Compute'
Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, planned to do away with device labels from tweets. This may come as one of the major changes on the social media platform, it was reported in November 2022.
What Happened: Following the uproar about the Tesla Inc. CEO's decision to monetize the verification badge, launch the "official" label, kill it and then reactivate it and initiate mass layoffs, the social media platform is now planning to eliminate 'Twitter for iPhone' and 'Twitter for Android' labels, seen at the bottom of a tweet.
If a message was sent from an iPhone, it says ‘Twitter for iPhone’ and if the text was sent from an Android smartphone, it reads ‘Twitter for Android.’
In a series of tweets originally about "Twitter being slow in many countries," Musk dropped the bomb.
And we will finally stop adding what device a tweet was written on (waste of screen space & compute) below every tweet. Literally, no one even knows why we did that …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 14, 2022
See Also: Tesla Impersonated By Parody Handle Amid Elon Musk's Twitter 'Blue Check' Chaos
This step may prevent users from making memes out of celebrity and brand mixups.
In October, Alphabet Inc.'s Google Pixel team decided to diss Tim Cook-led Apple on Twitter, but in the excitement, they tweeted the post from an iPhone, becoming an instant laughingstock.
Twitter for iPhone police @MKBHD pic.twitter.com/f7ayNZBRMA
— Ian Zelbo (@ianzelbo) October 20, 2022
Samsung and Huawei Technologies were also caught in such bizarre incidents.
Though it’s a bit amusing sometimes pic.twitter.com/lfphbWaCys
— Arve ㊷ Claudius Nero's Legion (@captainarve) November 14, 2022
For the memes of course pic.twitter.com/vJPUfhfGZn
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) November 14, 2022
Why It's Important: Keeping the entertainment value of adding what device a post came from below the tweet aside, this feature may have been more critical than users thought.
Hashtag inventor Chris Messina said that the feature was a helpful status indicator.
For those wondering why it was useful pic.twitter.com/37rKBcVg9o
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) November 14, 2022
While this little label was never perfect, it could help users spot bots, according to Apple Insider.
This story was originally published on Nov. 15, 2022.
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Posted-In: Chris Messina Consumer Tech Elon Musk Google PixelNews Social Media Tech Media
