8 ms·

Going back to the old (pre-X) Twitter iOS app

87 points by msephton 3y ago

asifjamil 3y ago
Unless there's something that I've missed, this seems like a lot of work just to essentially have the bird logo in place of the X logo.
- msephton 3y ago
  Not really a lot of work, 15 minutes tops. There are changes other than the logo and user interface labels, but they are enough to warrant me doing it IMHO. Muscle memory, I suppose you could say.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
msephton 3y ago
I updated the blog post with the version number of the last version before Spaces was introduced. The experience without Spaces, or any of the Ecks or other nonsense is almost Zen-like in comparison to current.
3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
That’s an interesting guide for getting old apps. But I don’t understand the obsession with going back to old Twitter. Twitter is not the app. It’s the live service. It’s what it is. Yes it sucks. Embrace it. If it sucks then stop using it. If it doesn’t suck enough keep using it and voice your opinions. But we can’t turn back time. You get to pick between two broken apps. Old and broken or new and broken. The old Twitter is gone.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  This is still interesting, because its way around new X anti-features. You can't really bypass them on web or in the new app. But Twitter has no choice but to support old iOS/Android apps, where, for whatever reason, auto update is not working, lest they lose thousands of users. My mother broke auto update on her old Galaxy. I dont even know how she did it, as it should be working, but it is not, and she won't let anyone mess with it too much...
  - msephton 3y ago
    Exactly, they have to support old versions, and this is a very recent old version from last month. On Android, it's possible: you can install an old version and then turn off auto-updates at a per-app level.
    - brucethemoose2 3y ago
      Yeah but it seems to be broken globally, even though its enabled in Google Play. It doesn't seem to be disabled per app. And she likes it that way anyway, and she gets upset when UIs change and such.
      - ianlevesque 3y ago
        It can also be upsetting to have your accounts hacked and your contact list used to find targets to socially engineer for money by impersonating you. It’s a jungle out there.
        brucethemoose2 3y ago
        Oh, I know...
- msephton 3y ago
  At it's most basic I have muscle memory and habit involving the old icon, interface labels, and so on. That's enough for me to want to do this. I'm only talking about the app here, of course, though you seem to be conflating the app and the platform/service. Personally, I don't see the types of problematic content that have apparently increased on the platform, never have. I just use it how I've always used it and I'm happy enough. YMMV
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
fluder 3y ago
I think it's time to say goodbye to Twitter. Without updates, the service is dead for me.
- love2read 3y ago
  It’s getting more updates than ever?
  - iguessthislldo 3y ago
    I think that's their issue with it.
    - natch 3y ago
      “Without updates, the service is dead for me.” hmm, they have an odd way of saying that then.
      - zogrodea 3y ago
        I think that means "without updates to Twitter" (instead of "updates to X"). Because, if you keep the old Twitter app with the bird logo, you can't update the app while keeping "Twitter" (the brand and aesthetic).
        natch 3y ago
        But seriously, who gives a. This kind of thing just strikes me as fake outrage. Use X, it’s fine, or not. And maybe the weird Elon-hating tribe they want to be with isn’t on X or Twitter anymore anyway. There’s always the insular world of Mastodon if that helps. The world changes, and we move on. I don’t always like it either but we have to deal.
- msephton 3y ago
  Fair enough, I can't blame you. But for me, I'm enjoying my communities as much as ever. Data point that my friends in Japan are oblivious to all the stuff people in the USA/Europe are getting worked up about. I don't really think about it, I just carry on using the service for my interests and needs.
haunter 3y ago
Nice guide! I wish there was something like this for apps that have been completely erased from AppStore (not even available under the purchased history). Afaik apart from jailbreaking there is no way to install those.
- dendrite9 3y ago
  Yeah I have an app I like that has been deleted from the google play store. It's on an old phone and I want to figure out how to get it on a newer phone.
  - msephton 3y ago
    For Android there are sources for old APKs and you can verify fairly easily that they have not been tampered with. Once installed, you can disable auto-update for that app. I have done this with the Twitter app on my Android tablet that I mostly use for ebook reading.
  - flutas 3y ago
    You can probably use adb to get the APK of it. Or check trusted sites like apkmirror to see if they just have one.
  - 38 3y ago
    if you know the info I might be able to get it
- runjake 3y ago
  If you can get the app IPA, I believe you can still codesign it yourself and dump it on your iOS device without jailbreaking. https://rderik.com/blog/resigning-ios-apps-from-an-ipa-for-mobile-security-research/ https://rderik.com/blog/resigning-ios-apps-from-an-ipa-for-m...
- radley 3y ago
  I used iMazing (on macOS) to backup and restore iOS apps. An app that I use daily got aquihired and was removed from the store. The company who made the app warned us in advance they were shutting down, so many of us were able to make a backup.
medlazik 3y ago
On desktop, the extension "Control Panel for Twitter" will let you "Replace X branding changes", it's great. https://jbscript.dev/control-panel-for-twitter https://jbscript.dev/control-panel-for-twitter You can also hide the idiots with the BlueLiteBlocker extension https://github.com/BlueLiteBlocker/BlueLiteBlocker https://github.com/BlueLiteBlocker/BlueLiteBlocker Makes Twitter a bit more like it was before idiot in chief took over
- insin 3y ago
  > On desktop And on mobile! (some assembly required) Control Panel for Twitter also has an option to hide Blue replies in threads, but it's off by default as you can end up with hundreds of replies "visible" (as far as Twitter's windowing implementation is concerned) on the screen, which tanks performance. Tweet threads seem to top out at just over 200 replies, so boosted replies make looking at most "popular" tweets pointless, like anything from ${siteOwner} with thousands of people trying to engagement farm for Blue Bucks in the replies. You're lucky if more than 5 non-Blue replies are left standing.
Transpire7487 3y ago
[flagged]
paxys 3y ago
How long will this realistically continue to work? APIs change all the time. The second there is a backwards incompatible change pushed out to their servers (which could happen tomorrow) you are out of luck. There is also possibly code out there already which says to only allow older clients up to a certain minimum date or version.
- msephton 3y ago
  Of course. But the "old" version I've installed is still very recent, July 2023, and I'd assume there are a ton of devices out there still running that build and even older builds with no way to update. They could cut old versions off, but they would be cutting off a lot of users. When I did this in 2016 for eBay and Google Inbox I got a year out of each. For this Twitter app, I'll enjoy it whilst it lasts. I'm a glass half full kind guy.
  - paxys 3y ago
    When it comes to Twitter there's an added risk of getting your account banned because of it.
    - msephton 3y ago
      Nice bit of FUD there.
      - TylerE 3y ago
        Not exactly FUD given Elon's history of yeeting anyone who annoys him.
        catach 3y ago
        While I agree that Elon is petty enough to ban when slighted, it seems to me that simply running an older client version has too many other probable reasons to be clearly interpreted as personal insult.
bandergirl 3y ago
I can’t believe anyone puts any effort into “bring back X” mods. The change is done, they’re not going back, any “reversal” you may make is utterly temporary and depends on the lone soul who wrote it in an afternoon and forgot about it. Anyone having lived online for 5 years knows this: there’s only going forward, Google Reader isn’t coming back.
- adrienthebo 3y ago
  It may be temporary, but if bringing back X improves the quality of someone's life, more power to them. We're stuck with the downsides of continuous delivery; having a consistent UI for just a bit longer can be a cognitive relief. When Pixel phones switched from navigation buttons to gestures I tried them and hated the experience and reverted. Eventually I got forced over to gestures and still hate them so delaying gave me a bit more bandwidth to allocate from stupid UI changes to things I actually care about.
  - MoarEmus 3y ago
    I'm on a Pixel and can still choose to have the nav buttons on the bottom. It's under Accessibility > System controls > System navigation.
  - acdha 3y ago
    For offline things, I agree - the people keeping older versions of Photoshop working, for example, are getting plenty of value and saving money. For a network service, however, I think this is worse than doing nothing: continuing to use Twitter at this point is not neutral but actually supporting and rewarding Musk for every decision he’s made, and your use of a social network encourages people you know to stay there. That means that you’re not only not finding a long-term replacement, you’re making it harder for one to exist.
- msephton 3y ago
  If you can't believe this, there are a lot of other things that are truly going to rock your world. Enjoy the ride.
- 3y ago
ks2048 3y ago
Interesting that this is possible. On a tangent: Is there anything on betting markets on if "X" will ever change back to "Twitter"? I could see Musk getting bored or deciding to focus on his other companies, and after a re-sale, reverting to Twitter.
- Given_47 3y ago
  Those prop markets r mostly just marketing, I mean the limits r measly (like $100-$200 max). However there’s probably some individuals taking those type of bets on the European exchanges, but I’m not too familiar with them
Affric 3y ago
The crazy thing about Twitter is how ugly the rebrand is. I have seen bad rebrands in my life: Far too fashionable. Totally unnecessary. Reactionary. But I have never seen a company go from good branding like Twitter had (easy on the eyes) to something as ugly as X. I will never bad mouth the branding/advertising/PR guys again. The logos and colours are hideous. The balance on the whole page is off. Like there’s the verb he’s thrown away. There’s the awareness. The brand. The goodwill. The safety. But he’s traded it for the least aesthetic choice. It has recontextualised every other redesign I can remember disdaining in my life.
- msephton 3y ago
  That's one way to see the positive in all of this :)
- qwerki 3y ago
  With every haphazard decision we're getting a very public experiment demonstrating the value of "giving people what they want" vs "everything else". It's astonishing how resilient the network effects behind the product in this case are against sabotage. Good lesson in startups there. You just need to laser focus on creating value for the customer – everything else doesn't matter as much as you think it does? Maybe even by power of 10 factors?
  - ffhhttt 3y ago
    I’m not so sure. It probably matters a whole lot more when you’re starting and nobody is using your app. Twitter would likely had a much harder time catching up if was called “X” and looked as ugly as now.. And even for a mature product it will probably cost quite a bit of money/users longterm
- tyingq 3y ago
  "You may be missing out on ads revenue sharing! If eligible, you must be subscribed to X Premium to receive a share of ads revenue. Sign up to X Premium to get access." It looks and feels like a template where someone forgot to pass in the variables.
Synaesthesia 3y ago
I still just use Firefox browser on Android instead of apps, for Twitter, YouTube, Reddit ...
- tstrimple 3y ago
  I prefer this too. No notifications or anything to demand my attention. Shitty web interfaces that add enough friction that I am less likely to doomscroll for hours.
  - ulfw 3y ago
    Notifications can very easily be turned off. Not sure how that would be a reason to forgo apps in general.
- msephton 3y ago
  That reminds me - there used to be Twitter Lite on Android which was a simple wrapper for the mobile website.
tibbydudeza 3y ago
This is a fools errand like building a Hackintosh in the age of M silicon. Accept it and move along.
- lproven 3y ago
  You do realise that this is effectively saying to people "what's wrong with you, just spend a few thousand £/$/€ and stop wasting time?" Not everyone has £1000-£2000 lying around doing nothing. However, a lot of geeks have old PC hardware lying around doing nothing. One of the details I liked about The Big Bang Theory was the multiple half-cannibalised PC carcasses in the background of every shot.
  - tibbydudeza 3y ago
    Firstly donate unused PC's to a worthy cause - there are several folks in need of them than hoarding it - some people want things to work out of the box and OS upgrades to be seamless and don't want to tinker. A Mac Mini is hardly breaking the bank.
- msephton 3y ago
  Hard disagree with toys poor analogy. I don't have any stats but I'm sure a huge percentage of Twitter users are not using the latest version. I'm just choosing to to run a particular version. Anybody on iOS 14 and earlier will also be running this version.
angoragoats 3y ago
Why bother? The old apps are going to stop working at some point (and soon, if the recent API breakage continues). If you don’t like what Twitter has become, stop using it.
- msephton 3y ago
  "Why bother living if you're eventually going to die?" I'm sure you can now see the problem with your argument. My issue was only with the app not the service. I'm using a version of the app from March 2021 (pre-Spaces, pre-takeover) and it's peak Twitter user experience IMHO. Stories of the API deprecation have been greatly exaggerated.
  - angoragoats 3y ago
    > "Why bother living if you're eventually going to die?" > I'm sure you can now see the problem with your argument. If using Twitter is equivalent to living in your analogy, then I'll choose death, thanks. I think a more apt analogy would be: "Why bother maintaining a relationship with an abusive lover if they're just going to tire of you and drop you to the curb?" I'm sure you can now see the problem with your argument.

87 points by msephton 3y ago

Unless there's something that I've missed, this seems like a lot of work just to essentially have the bird logo in place of the X logo.

msephton 3y ago
Not really a lot of work, 15 minutes tops. There are changes other than the logo and user interface labels, but they are enough to warrant me doing it IMHO. Muscle memory, I suppose you could say.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

msephton 3y ago

I updated the blog post with the version number of the last version before Spaces was introduced. The experience without Spaces, or any of the Ecks or other nonsense is almost Zen-like in comparison to current.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago

That’s an interesting guide for getting old apps. But I don’t understand the obsession with going back to old Twitter. Twitter is not the app. It’s the live service. It’s what it is. Yes it sucks. Embrace it. If it sucks then stop using it. If it doesn’t suck enough keep using it and voice your opinions. But we can’t turn back time. You get to pick between two broken apps. Old and broken or new and broken. The old Twitter is gone.

brucethemoose2 3y ago
This is still interesting, because its way around new X anti-features. You can't really bypass them on web or in the new app. But Twitter has no choice but to support old iOS/Android apps, where, for whatever reason, auto update is not working, lest they lose thousands of users. My mother broke auto update on her old Galaxy. I dont even know how she did it, as it should be working, but it is not, and she won't let anyone mess with it too much...
- msephton 3y ago
  Exactly, they have to support old versions, and this is a very recent old version from last month. On Android, it's possible: you can install an old version and then turn off auto-updates at a per-app level.
  - brucethemoose2 3y ago
    Yeah but it seems to be broken globally, even though its enabled in Google Play. It doesn't seem to be disabled per app. And she likes it that way anyway, and she gets upset when UIs change and such.
    - ianlevesque 3y ago
      It can also be upsetting to have your accounts hacked and your contact list used to find targets to socially engineer for money by impersonating you. It’s a jungle out there.
      - brucethemoose2 3y ago
        Oh, I know...
msephton 3y ago
At it's most basic I have muscle memory and habit involving the old icon, interface labels, and so on. That's enough for me to want to do this. I'm only talking about the app here, of course, though you seem to be conflating the app and the platform/service. Personally, I don't see the types of problematic content that have apparently increased on the platform, never have. I just use it how I've always used it and I'm happy enough. YMMV
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

fluder 3y ago

I think it's time to say goodbye to Twitter. Without updates, the service is dead for me.

love2read 3y ago
It’s getting more updates than ever?
- iguessthislldo 3y ago
  I think that's their issue with it.
  - natch 3y ago
    “Without updates, the service is dead for me.” hmm, they have an odd way of saying that then.
    - zogrodea 3y ago
      I think that means "without updates to Twitter" (instead of "updates to X"). Because, if you keep the old Twitter app with the bird logo, you can't update the app while keeping "Twitter" (the brand and aesthetic).
      - natch 3y ago
        But seriously, who gives a. This kind of thing just strikes me as fake outrage. Use X, it’s fine, or not. And maybe the weird Elon-hating tribe they want to be with isn’t on X or Twitter anymore anyway. There’s always the insular world of Mastodon if that helps. The world changes, and we move on. I don’t always like it either but we have to deal.
msephton 3y ago
Fair enough, I can't blame you. But for me, I'm enjoying my communities as much as ever. Data point that my friends in Japan are oblivious to all the stuff people in the USA/Europe are getting worked up about. I don't really think about it, I just carry on using the service for my interests and needs.

haunter 3y ago

Nice guide! I wish there was something like this for apps that have been completely erased from AppStore (not even available under the purchased history). Afaik apart from jailbreaking there is no way to install those.

dendrite9 3y ago
Yeah I have an app I like that has been deleted from the google play store. It's on an old phone and I want to figure out how to get it on a newer phone.
- msephton 3y ago
  For Android there are sources for old APKs and you can verify fairly easily that they have not been tampered with. Once installed, you can disable auto-update for that app. I have done this with the Twitter app on my Android tablet that I mostly use for ebook reading.
- flutas 3y ago
  You can probably use adb to get the APK of it. Or check trusted sites like apkmirror to see if they just have one.
- 38 3y ago
  if you know the info I might be able to get it
runjake 3y ago
If you can get the app IPA, I believe you can still codesign it yourself and dump it on your iOS device without jailbreaking. https://rderik.com/blog/resigning-ios-apps-from-an-ipa-for-mobile-security-research/ https://rderik.com/blog/resigning-ios-apps-from-an-ipa-for-m...
radley 3y ago
I used iMazing (on macOS) to backup and restore iOS apps. An app that I use daily got aquihired and was removed from the store. The company who made the app warned us in advance they were shutting down, so many of us were able to make a backup.

medlazik 3y ago

On desktop, the extension "Control Panel for Twitter" will let you "Replace X branding changes", it's great. https://jbscript.dev/control-panel-for-twitter https://jbscript.dev/control-panel-for-twitter You can also hide the idiots with the BlueLiteBlocker extension https://github.com/BlueLiteBlocker/BlueLiteBlocker https://github.com/BlueLiteBlocker/BlueLiteBlocker Makes Twitter a bit more like it was before idiot in chief took over

insin 3y ago
> On desktop And on mobile! (some assembly required) Control Panel for Twitter also has an option to hide Blue replies in threads, but it's off by default as you can end up with hundreds of replies "visible" (as far as Twitter's windowing implementation is concerned) on the screen, which tanks performance. Tweet threads seem to top out at just over 200 replies, so boosted replies make looking at most "popular" tweets pointless, like anything from ${siteOwner} with thousands of people trying to engagement farm for Blue Bucks in the replies. You're lucky if more than 5 non-Blue replies are left standing.

Transpire7487 3y ago

[flagged]

paxys 3y ago

How long will this realistically continue to work? APIs change all the time. The second there is a backwards incompatible change pushed out to their servers (which could happen tomorrow) you are out of luck. There is also possibly code out there already which says to only allow older clients up to a certain minimum date or version.

msephton 3y ago
Of course. But the "old" version I've installed is still very recent, July 2023, and I'd assume there are a ton of devices out there still running that build and even older builds with no way to update. They could cut old versions off, but they would be cutting off a lot of users. When I did this in 2016 for eBay and Google Inbox I got a year out of each. For this Twitter app, I'll enjoy it whilst it lasts. I'm a glass half full kind guy.
- paxys 3y ago
  When it comes to Twitter there's an added risk of getting your account banned because of it.
  - msephton 3y ago
    Nice bit of FUD there.
    - TylerE 3y ago
      Not exactly FUD given Elon's history of yeeting anyone who annoys him.
      - catach 3y ago
        While I agree that Elon is petty enough to ban when slighted, it seems to me that simply running an older client version has too many other probable reasons to be clearly interpreted as personal insult.

bandergirl 3y ago

I can’t believe anyone puts any effort into “bring back X” mods. The change is done, they’re not going back, any “reversal” you may make is utterly temporary and depends on the lone soul who wrote it in an afternoon and forgot about it. Anyone having lived online for 5 years knows this: there’s only going forward, Google Reader isn’t coming back.

adrienthebo 3y ago
It may be temporary, but if bringing back X improves the quality of someone's life, more power to them. We're stuck with the downsides of continuous delivery; having a consistent UI for just a bit longer can be a cognitive relief. When Pixel phones switched from navigation buttons to gestures I tried them and hated the experience and reverted. Eventually I got forced over to gestures and still hate them so delaying gave me a bit more bandwidth to allocate from stupid UI changes to things I actually care about.
- MoarEmus 3y ago
  I'm on a Pixel and can still choose to have the nav buttons on the bottom. It's under Accessibility > System controls > System navigation.
- acdha 3y ago
  For offline things, I agree - the people keeping older versions of Photoshop working, for example, are getting plenty of value and saving money. For a network service, however, I think this is worse than doing nothing: continuing to use Twitter at this point is not neutral but actually supporting and rewarding Musk for every decision he’s made, and your use of a social network encourages people you know to stay there. That means that you’re not only not finding a long-term replacement, you’re making it harder for one to exist.
msephton 3y ago
If you can't believe this, there are a lot of other things that are truly going to rock your world. Enjoy the ride.
3y ago

ks2048 3y ago

Interesting that this is possible. On a tangent: Is there anything on betting markets on if "X" will ever change back to "Twitter"? I could see Musk getting bored or deciding to focus on his other companies, and after a re-sale, reverting to Twitter.

Given_47 3y ago
Those prop markets r mostly just marketing, I mean the limits r measly (like $100-$200 max). However there’s probably some individuals taking those type of bets on the European exchanges, but I’m not too familiar with them

Affric 3y ago

The crazy thing about Twitter is how ugly the rebrand is. I have seen bad rebrands in my life: Far too fashionable. Totally unnecessary. Reactionary. But I have never seen a company go from good branding like Twitter had (easy on the eyes) to something as ugly as X. I will never bad mouth the branding/advertising/PR guys again. The logos and colours are hideous. The balance on the whole page is off. Like there’s the verb he’s thrown away. There’s the awareness. The brand. The goodwill. The safety. But he’s traded it for the least aesthetic choice. It has recontextualised every other redesign I can remember disdaining in my life.

msephton 3y ago
That's one way to see the positive in all of this :)
qwerki 3y ago
With every haphazard decision we're getting a very public experiment demonstrating the value of "giving people what they want" vs "everything else". It's astonishing how resilient the network effects behind the product in this case are against sabotage. Good lesson in startups there. You just need to laser focus on creating value for the customer – everything else doesn't matter as much as you think it does? Maybe even by power of 10 factors?
- ffhhttt 3y ago
  I’m not so sure. It probably matters a whole lot more when you’re starting and nobody is using your app. Twitter would likely had a much harder time catching up if was called “X” and looked as ugly as now.. And even for a mature product it will probably cost quite a bit of money/users longterm
tyingq 3y ago
"You may be missing out on ads revenue sharing! If eligible, you must be subscribed to X Premium to receive a share of ads revenue. Sign up to X Premium to get access." It looks and feels like a template where someone forgot to pass in the variables.

Synaesthesia 3y ago

I still just use Firefox browser on Android instead of apps, for Twitter, YouTube, Reddit ...

tstrimple 3y ago
I prefer this too. No notifications or anything to demand my attention. Shitty web interfaces that add enough friction that I am less likely to doomscroll for hours.
- ulfw 3y ago
  Notifications can very easily be turned off. Not sure how that would be a reason to forgo apps in general.
msephton 3y ago
That reminds me - there used to be Twitter Lite on Android which was a simple wrapper for the mobile website.

tibbydudeza 3y ago

This is a fools errand like building a Hackintosh in the age of M silicon. Accept it and move along.

lproven 3y ago
You do realise that this is effectively saying to people "what's wrong with you, just spend a few thousand £/$/€ and stop wasting time?" Not everyone has £1000-£2000 lying around doing nothing. However, a lot of geeks have old PC hardware lying around doing nothing. One of the details I liked about The Big Bang Theory was the multiple half-cannibalised PC carcasses in the background of every shot.
- tibbydudeza 3y ago
  Firstly donate unused PC's to a worthy cause - there are several folks in need of them than hoarding it - some people want things to work out of the box and OS upgrades to be seamless and don't want to tinker. A Mac Mini is hardly breaking the bank.
msephton 3y ago
Hard disagree with toys poor analogy. I don't have any stats but I'm sure a huge percentage of Twitter users are not using the latest version. I'm just choosing to to run a particular version. Anybody on iOS 14 and earlier will also be running this version.

angoragoats 3y ago

Why bother? The old apps are going to stop working at some point (and soon, if the recent API breakage continues). If you don’t like what Twitter has become, stop using it.

msephton 3y ago
"Why bother living if you're eventually going to die?" I'm sure you can now see the problem with your argument. My issue was only with the app not the service. I'm using a version of the app from March 2021 (pre-Spaces, pre-takeover) and it's peak Twitter user experience IMHO. Stories of the API deprecation have been greatly exaggerated.
- angoragoats 3y ago
  > "Why bother living if you're eventually going to die?" > I'm sure you can now see the problem with your argument. If using Twitter is equivalent to living in your analogy, then I'll choose death, thanks. I think a more apt analogy would be: "Why bother maintaining a relationship with an abusive lover if they're just going to tire of you and drop you to the curb?" I'm sure you can now see the problem with your argument.