One of the best memes in the tech community is about to be sent out to pasture. We could be living in the best age of tech memes and not even knowing it, people.
Earlier today, Chief Twit Elon Musk took to Twitter to announce that the company will be "turning off the 'microservices' bloatware." According to the new owner of the the social media platform, "less than 20% are actually needed for Twitter to work!"
The new owner/CEO/Compliant Hotline Operator/developer/whatever else also said that the company is going to "stop adding what device a tweet was written on (waste of screen space & compute) below every tweet." Seemingly perplexed, Musk said that "literally no one even knows why we did that."
And we will finally stop adding what device a tweet was written on (waste of screen space & compute) below every tweet. Literally no one even knows why we did that …November 14, 2022
It was for the memes
Some users responded to the tweet, pointing out that, if Musk goes through with the change, we won't be able to call out people who advertise a new Android on Twitter while tweeting from...an iPhone. Marques Brownlee pointed out a tweet from Gal Gadot where the actress tweeted about her new Huawei phone...from an iPhone.
For the memes of course pic.twitter.com/vJPUfhfGZnNovember 14, 2022
Another user pointed out an example where the Google Pixel account tweeted to Tim Cook while using, you guessed it, an iPhone.
🫡 pic.twitter.com/SzzFvlB6G1November 14, 2022
Okay, all of these examples are funny for the memes but, as Chris Messina pointed out, that wasn't actually the reason for the feature existing. According to the product designer, "it was a useful way to provide visibility via attribution for third-party clients, like Tweetie (which was acquired and became the Twitter iOS app) or Tweetdeck (RIP). It was also a useful status indicator (e.g. whether the tweet was sent via desktop or mobile)."
It was a useful way to provide visibility via attribution for third party clients, like Tweetie (which was acquired and became the Twitter iOS app) or Tweetdeck (RIP).It was also a useful status indicator (e.g. whether the tweet was sent via desktop or mobile).November 14, 2022
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to Messina's tweet by simply saying "correct."
Regardless of the reason for the feature to exist, Musk doesn't seem keen on keeping it. So, pour one out for the "Twitter for iPhone" meme. It was fun while it lasted (kind of like Twitter itself).
