Vine for iOS now loads faster and can play videos when offline

Twitter updated Vine for iOS today with a speed boost and offline support. You can download the new version now from Apple’s App Store. The company says an Android update with “similar changes” is “coming soon.”

When you open Vine, you should now see that posts show up more quickly. This is possible because the app now starts downloading content, including from your home feed, your activity notifications, and Vines in Explore, before you even open it.

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To show off the improvements, Vine created, well, a Vine:

While those on slower Internet connections should in particular notice the performance jump, everyone will enjoy being able to use Vine when offline, as you can see in the comparison above (on the left is the old Vine app and on the right is today’s new version). If you’re on airplane mode or simply on the subway, you’ll still be able to browse Vines. That said, you of course won’t be able to load new videos until you connect back online.

This feature works because Twitter has implemented network caching, as you may have guessed. The company has also introduced a new, smaller video file size that can downloads much faster, although it didn’t say how this might impact content quality.

While other iOS apps have taken advantage of preloading before, Vine appears to be the first major video app to do so. Facebook should probably take notes, as should its subsidiary Instagram.

The downside here is that Vine will naturally end up eating up more data (we’ve reached out to Twitter to check whether the app defaults to Wi-Fi). If this worries you, play around with iOS settings (look for the background app refresh options) or simply use Vine’s website instead.