Twitter adds threaded replies to iOS to make it easier to see ongoing conversations

Twitter announced a subtle design change to its iOS app today that may go a long way in both making conversations easier to parse and to join. The change, which looks like it’s a change on Twitter’s end that does not require an update, is to the threading feature in the Twitter timeline, which currently does a poor job of differentiating between standard tweets and replies.

The update now draws a concrete line between a parent tweet and the replies, with the replies indented slightly and connected by the series of vertical and horizontal lines. It makes a Twitter conversation look effectively like thread of connected notes. The feature was first demoed in the company’s experimental twttr beta app back in spring of last year. It only displays these threads for replies from people you follow, so you won’t have your timeline inundated with tweets from random people you don’t know.

Twitter says this “new layout makes it easier to see who’s replying to who so you can join in on relevant conversations,” making clear the company hopes the change will encourage users to reply to tweets and join in on conversations more often rather than just skimming the timeline.