Twitter PWA gets a new column layout with less dead space for Windows 10

By Daniel Rubino
published

Bye-bye dead and wasted areas for a new app-like design.

Twitter PWA
Twitter PWA (Image credit: Windows Central)

Twitter seems to be having fun with the concept of progressive web apps (PWA). The company just pushed out an update to its PWA site and app for Windows 10 that changes the layout dramatically.

The refreshed design pushes the home, explore, notifications and direct messages tabs to the left-hand side instead of being on top. On the right-side Twitter has expanded "Who to follow" and "Trending now" with more graphics and making it a bit more eye-catching to boost engagement. There's also your most recent uploaded media and images. That leaves the center area for the chosen view of home, explore, notifications and direct messages.

Gone is the top selector area and the non-mistakable "this is a web page" design. Instead, the app definitely looks more app-like now. The change also corrects a big complaint from users like that there was a lot of dead and wasted spaced in the old design versus today's changes, which uses all the areas.

Microsoft is supporting Google's Progressive Web Apps platform and that's great news for everyone

To get the app layout update, the user does not have to do anything on their end. There is no app update in the Microsoft Store as instead the changes are pushed from the Twitter website directly. At the very most, you may need to close and re-open Twitter for Windows 10 on your PC. If you don't see the update right away it likely a regional issue as the changes propagate through the Twitter webservers.

Today's update follows an earlier one on February 26 that brought pop-out event videos, crop and resize image uploads, and improvements to polls, emoji, profiles and more.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA): What they are, and what they mean for Microsoft

So far, the Twitter release info page has not detailed any other changes, but we'll update this article if more information becomes available. Let us know in comments what you think of the new design!

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been here covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, Microsoft Surface, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics and ran the projectors at movie theaters, which has done absolutely nothing for his career.

14 Comments
  • Column on the left for me seems really wide when in full screen mode.
  • Yup, agree they could still use that better though for what I'm not sure.
  • Yeah even the right is pretty wide as well. Not as noticeable though given there is a little bit more going on there. Not sure how it would look though if they narrowed each side and made the center main feed wider.
  • Has Mobile Nation abandoned it's UWP App Dan? I think a PWA would be a good replacement, the current app has started locking up for me recently.
  • On a 14 inch Surface display, the left column is indeed wide. They should allow you to close the navigation pane, like in the new OneNote design or really, most app "nav pane" designs. Still, I like the new design.
    And any PWA love that lands on Windows apps is love well spent😁
  • When ae we going to see a Windows Central PWA?
  • Does it finally provide notifications now?
  • Still waiting for them to implement a live feed like Tweeten (and the old Twitter app).
  • Sorry, but Tweetium is still an infinitely better looking and better featured Twitter app. Heck, I do NOT have "Trending" checked in the settings, yet Twitter's own app is still puking out Trending items on the right. Great programming...not.
  • Isn't PWA supposed to be the same for all platforms?
  • Not seeing this yet in Chicagoland and a question -- how does one determine if an app is PWA?
  • PWA - Pointless Windows Application
  • Except... being developed by google.... sooooo
  • 2 weeks have gone by. Still not seeing this new screen layout in Chicagoland. I'm assuming the MS Store Twitter Win10 "is" PWA, but I have no way to tell.