Twitter has come back to the Mac with the introduction of a new Catalyst-powered app for macOS Catalina, started on Thursday.
The company in June had been between the first to announce its plans to take the support of Mac Catalyst.
What Is The Mac Catalyst?
The Mac Catalyst or just the Catalyst is Apple’s current toolset for getting iPad apps to the Mac desktop. The Catalyst had been formally launched after Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference.
The purpose of Catalyst is to make it simpler for iOS developers to build software for the Mac ecosystem.
This will be done by enabling them to leverage their current iOS project and source code, then layer on primary Mac features and change touch controls to the keyboard and mouse.
Twitter’s Involvement
Twitter had been one of the more deeply anticipated Catalyst apps to come.
Not only because of how it was designed, but also because Twitter had chosen to kill off its Mac desktop client last year, asking desktop users to use its website alternately.
This left the users who favoured a local Mac experience to switch to third-party apps like TweetDeck, Twitterific 5 or Tweetbot 3.
The former is created more for those who work in social media or are huge consumers or power users.
The following two, while being good alternatives to an official client, are paid applications with much more bells and whistles than some expect.
Twitter’s latest Catalyst app is free and offers a consistent experience with the rest of the Twitter platform apps.
The interface is easy thanks to the code base sharing, and there is even a dark mode choice available.
Though, its timeline doesn’t refresh in real-time, which has surfaced as one of the users’ frequent complaint about the new app.
Others aimed out that the full-screen experience is lacking and that the double toolbar looked like a weak fit.
Additionally, there are other odd differences between the desktop client and web app, some users recorded.
That said, the overall feeling is one where people are happy to have an official app back on the desktop.
And some of the other criticisms will likely be addressed in time. Or so we hope.
The app only runs on macOS Catalina, which everyone has not installed just yet.
It is a free download from the Mac App Store.
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