Rui Carmo
Quite honestly, I find the new iOS app to be a piece of utter crap. It is indeed as if they dumbed down the experience across the board, and I, for one, hate the way direct messaging was squirreled away. I don’t care one whit about the (immovable) “discover” tab, consider the mentions option one of their lousiest choices ever (nearly topping the “dickbar”) and don’t find it the least bit appealing to have a nearly identical (and much more limited) UI across iOS and Android.
Update: as further proof that they’ve gone completely batshit insane, there is an utterly impossible to discover shortcut to access your direct messages: swipe up on “me” to list them, or across to switch accounts.