Twitter recently rolled out a new feature to its iOS app, making it easier to search the tweets of an individual user.
Previously, the search term could be amended manually if you wanted to filter tweets by a particular person, but Twitter has added a button for easier access, as spotted by XDA Developers.
Twitter has long since offered advanced search filters on its platforms, whether on desktop or mobile. This was to allow people who wanted to streamline their search by more precise parameters to do so. One of those parameters included usernames, and there was both a field for searching usernames directly, as well as a shortcut (from username search term) where you could input into the search bar.
Now, iOS users can do this without needing to jump through hoops.
It’s as easy as navigating to the profile of the user you want to search and seeking out the search icon on their profile page. Once there, all you need to do is enter the search term you want, and the user’s tweet history will be searched directly. If you don’t have the feature yet, the old shortcuts will still work.
Twitter has also rolled out a few other options for mobile users. A useful tabbed layout that toggles between the algorithmic home feed and the latest tweets feed is one of them. Another change that restores image previews of Instagram links is a much-requested user feature that the company just recently enabled. Still in the works is a downvote button, much like on Reddit. The company has enabled that on select accounts as part of a test but has yet to roll it out widely.
Of course, it’s possible that this feature could make it easier for people to dig up others’ old, troublesome tweets. But, as always, it’s a great social media strategy to just not tweet potentially harmful content in the first place (also, delete old tweets).