After a rather rough start, Twitter on Thursday said it will remove the Quick Bar from its iOS app, which provided users with updates on trending topics.
Though the Quick Bar - referred to by some as the "Dick Bar" after CEO Dick Costolo - had "incredibly high usage metrics," Twitter has opted to remove it from the app rather than continually update it.
"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," Twitter creative director Doug Bowman wrote in a blog post. "We believe there are still significant benefits to increasing awareness of what's happening outside the home timeline."
The Quick Bar was added to the app earlier earlier this month as part of an upgrade that also made it easier to access features like photos, trends, and links. It sat above a user's Twitter feed and displayed one of the days' current trending topics. Tapping the word would take you to a list of recent mentions.
Initially the Quick Bar overlayed a person's feed, so you'd see the Quick Bar with a recent tweet below. Users complained and a subsequent update removed this feature. Apparently that didn't do the trick, however, and the Quick Bar is now history.
"The QuickBar was originally conceived to help users discover what's happening in the broader world beyond people they already follow," Bowman wrote. "The bar was also seen as a potential means of in-app notifications for new @mentions, DMs, and other important activity."
If an app doesn't "improve the user experience or serve our mission, we'll remove that feature," he said. "For now, we're going back to the drawing board to explore the best possible experience for in-app notification and discovery."
For an evolution of the Quick Bar, see the slideshow below.