Frequent Twitter users are likely well acquainted with the shortcomings of the social media service’s “quote tweet” button: all it essentially did was put opening and closing quotes around a tweet. Now, the button is finally becoming more useful.
The older implementation of the quote functionality did only what it said on the tin, and didn’t allow users to add their own thoughts to a tweet. It also often left out important elements, like images. Users would have to resort to the standard retweet method to preserve context, but that didn’t allow them to add their own thoughts.
Now the quote button embeds the tweet in question, preserving images as well as allowing those quoting the tweet to add a full-length tweet of their own. For now, this functionality is only available on the iPhone and the Web, but Android support will be rolling out in the near future.
Twitter announced the revamped quote functionality yesterday the only way it knows how — through a tweet of its own. The short message simply announced the fix and provided a link to Twitter’s support page on quoting and retweeting. While the new quote tweet button works on the standard Twitter app for iPhone, those who use third-party apps like the popular Tweetbot are left in the cold — for now, anyway.
Twitter may be working on adding this functionality to its API, according to The Next Web. This would allow any third-party app to add the functionality. Permission of this type is becoming increasingly rare, as most new features that Twitter implements remain exclusive to its website and first-party apps.
No official date has been announced for when the new quote functionality will come to Android devices, but if the new feature is anything like Twitter’s Periscope app, it will be “coming soon” for quite a while.
