Skip to main content

Twitter waves bye-bye to square videos with new landscape mode

twitter video landscape
Twitter
Twitter has just rolled out new functionality for iOS and Android that lets you shoot videos in full frame landscape mode from within the app. Up to now, both portrait and landscape modes offered only a square frame, though that format remains for portrait shooters. The social media company announced the feature in a tweet on Wednesday, encouraging users to “expand your view of the world.”

To take the new mode for a test run, hit the tweet button top right, tap the camera icon, and hold your device in the horizontal position. When you hit the video camera button, the new landscape view appears (remember, you have to keep the button pressed to record).

The popular microblogging service has been steadily developing its built-in video offering since rolling it out at the start of the year, with its latest feature coming as other social media services – Snapchat among them – release improvements to their own video offerings.

The app’s video function currently lets you shoot up to 30 seconds of material, and also allows you to edit together a series of shots prior to posting. Twitter’s drive to expand and enhance the app’s multimedia offerings takes it ever further from its text-based origins as it endeavors to maintain its user base and attract new users, as well as increase interest among brands.

It’s further evidence of the considerable importance Twitter places on the role video plays in the social media world. The company also owns Periscope, the live streaming video app it purchased to compete with Meerkat, along with Vine, which it acquired back in 2012.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Twitter begins testing new Spaces functionality for Twitter Communities
Twitter's Community Spaces feature on a mobile device.

Some fans of the bird app's recently launched Twitter Communities could see added functionality to the service today as Twitter begins testing a new feature for it.

On Wednesday, Twitter announced via a co-tweet, that it would begin testing a feature called Community Spaces (a combination of Twitter Communities and Twitter Spaces, hence the co-tweet between the Twitter Communities and Spaces Twitter accounts).

Read more
Twitter now lets you put GIFs, images, and videos in one tweet
A Twitter icon on a blue background on a smartphone's screen, all on a white background.

Tired of not being able to put a fun GIF together along with a photo in your tweets? Twitter is breaking down that limit, announcing today that you'll now be able to combine GIFs, images, and videos in a single tweet.

In a blog post published on Wednesday, Twitter said you can use a combination of up to four GIFs, photos, and/or videos per tweet. Twitter Support shared a video in the tweet below demonstrating the mixing of each content format in tweets.

Read more
New feature shows that even Twitter wants to be like TikTok now
Twitter's new full screen feature for videos on the mobile app.

Is TikTok the new queen bee of social media? It appears so as even Twitter couldn't resist copying TikTok. Twitter's latest feature announcement seems to be yet another indication that the viral video app sensation is clearly the new leader among its peers. After all, TikTok is setting trends and its competitors are all following them.

On Thursday, Twitter announced two new video-focused features for its app and one of those features bears a strong resemblance to TikTok. That feature (known as the "immersive media viewer") allows users to open videos in a vertical "full-screen mode" -- just like TikTok -- and continue to view more videos by swiping up (also just like TikTok).

Read more