April 1, 2011 at 10:59 AM ET
At the beginning of March, Twitter released an update for its official iPhone app which included a new feature called the QuickBar. The twitterati quickly turned into an angry mob — it seemed almost everyone hated this app addition.
Well, good news: Twitter finally listened to the angry masses and removed the QuickBar from the Twitter for iPhone app.
As mentioned on the official Twitter blog, the QuickBar was intended as a way to help users discover trending topics — particularly local ones — by putting them smackdab on top of the timeline in the Twitter for iPhone app.
The only problem? The grey bar containing these trending topics — including those which were sponsored — annoyed users more than it helped them. Its placement at the top of timelines made it too easy for users to inadvertently tap it and it was considered an eyesore.
It barely took minutes after the app update hit for people — including yours truly — to start whining about the change. Some went as far as reverting to backups of their iPhones in order to rid themselves of the pesky new feature. Many picked up on the not-so-affectionate nickname blogger John Gruber coined for it.
So after a month of complaints, jokes and badgering, Twitter shared the good news in a blog post entitled "So a bar walks into an app...":
After testing a feature and evaluating its merits, if we learn it doesn’t improve the user experience or serve our mission, we’ll remove that feature.
Rather than continue to make changes to the QuickBar as it exists, we removed the bar from the update appearing in the App Store today. We believe there are still significant benefits to increasing awareness of what’s happening outside the home timeline. Evidence of the incredibly high usage metrics for the QuickBar support this. For now, we’re going back to the drawing board to explore the best possible experience for in-app notification and discovery.
Translation: The QuickBar is gone...for now.
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- Just how many active Twitter users are there?
- Twitter's most frequent squawkers a loud minority
- Is it time for a social media detox?
Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's a bit obsessed with Twitter, loves to be liked on Facebook, and couldn't be happier that the QuickBar is gone from Twitter for iPhone.