Twitter bring Mac App back to the help of Apple's Project Catalyst

Apple unveiled last week Project Catalyst, an initiative designed to allow developers to transfer their iPad applications on Mac.

At the time, Apple had named several partners, including Twitter, and today, Twitter has provided more details on its upcoming Mac application.

Twitter says that it will use its existing iOS code base to bring Twitter to Mac, but will add native Mac features over its existing one. iPad experience to make the application better suited for the Mac.

We are delighted that Project Catalyst allows us to bring Twitter back to Mac by taking advantage of our existing iOS code base. We will also be able to add native Mac features in addition to our existing software. iPad experience, while maintaining the efficiency of our maintenance as we continue to improve this shared code base over the coming years.

Previously, Twitter had a Twitter app for Mac that was discontinued in February 2018, inviting Mac users to use Twitter instead for a web experience.

The previous Twitter application for Mac has never attracted much attention for Twitter. In 2015, the company announced that it would focus its efforts on creating new features in the Mac application. Even after the addition of new features, the application was not selected and aroused largely negative reviews in the App Store.

According to Twitter, the previous version of the Mac application was discontinued because it was not viable to keep two separate code bases. Twitter wanted to focus on the Web and mobile rather than Mac, but with the new Twitter for Mac able to use the existing iOS code base, there is less work to do to make a Mac application available.

The new Twitter app for Mac will use our existing iOS code base, rather than being built from a separate code base, following the same strategy we used with Web to develop our taken clients in charge. By supporting Mac-specific key behaviors in addition to our iOS code, we will be able to maintain feature parity between our iOS and Mac apps with relatively low long-term maintenance costs.

Twitter indicates that the next Mac application will have full parity with other Twitter platforms, as well as additional changes such as resizable windows with dynamic content, multiple window support, native notifications, drag-and-drop and keyboard support.