Josh Hendrickson
It’s the holy grail of Twitter—no, not civil discourse; we’re talking something realistic: Editable Tweets. And though we’ve said it’s fine if Twitter never gets an edit button, we might get something close to it. Twitter is testing a process to make deleting and reposting a recent tweet to fix a typo easier.
Updated 9/13: After this article published, Twitter confirmed that this isn’t a new feature in testing. It turns out the behavior is a bug. We respectfully submit that perhaps the company should consider turning the bug into a feature.
sorry, this is a bug not anything we’re testing
— Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) September 14, 2020
The original report is left intact below.
First spotted by Twitter user Star Simpson, the test so far appears to be iOS only. We’ve reproduced the process on a newly updated iPad app, but not Android or the web.
OMG I think I just edited a tweet?? I wrote a tweet, noticed a benign single-letter typo, deleted the tweet and pressed “reply” again and found the full text of my previous tweet available to edit and send again. If this really is the feature test I think it is I am SO HAPPY.
— Star Simpson (@starsandrobots) September 13, 2020
Unfortunately, we’re not talking a true edit button here, but streamlining the process to delete and repost a tweet you typoed. When you go to write the new tweet, Twitter will helpfully insert your deleted text for quick editing. Thus far, it seems to be solely for tweets you sent in reply to someone else.
Here’s a screencast example for those on the thread trying it out pic.twitter.com/WEp3pBpIDs
— Andrew Curry (@andrewcurryla) September 13, 2020
That being the case, you’ll need to follow the process you probably already use. First, delete the tweet you sent as a reply with a typo. Then hit reply. And with that, Twitter will fill in the previous text you already had.
We tested on an Android, the web, and an iPad, but only reproduced the behavior from an iPad. Other users in Star Simpson’s thread have confirmed it works for them but from iPhones and iPads. While this isn’t the edit button you might want, it at least makes the process of fixing a silly typo easier. Hear’s hoping it won’t be limited to replies and Apple devices forever.
via Star Simpson
