Twitter for Mac has long languished, not seeing an update since 2011, but Twitter just pushed out a new one that brings Retina display support to the official client, as well as a revised interface for sharing photos, and 14 additional languages. The update is available now through the Mac App Store, and Twitter promises further improvements to come in the future.
The official Twitter for Mac app was originally Tweetie, a third-party client by developer Loren Brichter, which was acquired by Twitter. Brichter left Twitter late last year, re-founding his own development studio atebits and releasing Letterpress, a social word game that has been tremendously successful so far. Twitter for Mac fans had likely mostly given up hope that the software wasn’t abandoned, after it failed to see any kind of substantial update since June of 2011.
Twitter has been making other moves that indicate it wasn’t crazy about standalone clients, as it is sun-setting TweetDeck for iPhone on May 7. But TweetDeck for Mac continues to be supported for now, and it looks like they’re even willing to make fresh investment in the Twitter client itself. Twitter’s Ben Sandofsky said inn a tweet that he’ll be working full-time on the Mac version, in fact.
For my money, you’re still better off with Tweetbot for Mac, even if the official version is free, but the slightly tweaked compose window looks at first glance like an improvement, and Retina support goes a long way towards making it more usable. Also, the icon tweak, which brings it up-to-date with Twitter’s current branding, is pretty nice too, even if it only contributes to the existing sea of blue most OS X users find in their dock.