#twitterrific

To say that Twitter’s actions are disgraceful is an understatement. Whether or not they comply with Twitter’s API terms of service, the lack of any advanced notice or explanation to developers is unprofessional and an unrecoverable breach of trust between it and its developers and users.

Twitter’s actions also show a total lack of respect for the role that third-party apps have played in the development and success of the service from its earliest days. Twitter was founded in 2006, but it wasn’t until the iPhone launched about a year later that it really took off, thanks to the developers who built the first mobile apps for the service.

The fact that Elon Musk’s Twitter has cut off third-party developers isn’t surprising. Franky, I expected it sooner, but I didn’t expect it to be done with an utter lack of respect for the developers who played such a critical role in the service’s success for more than a decade. The developers of Twitterrific, Tweetbot, and every other app that has lost access to Twitter’s APIs deserved better than a silent flip of the switch late one Thursday night.

a wide range of third party apps like Twitterrific, Tweetbot, Echofon, and many others had been disabled.

There’s been no official word from Twitter about what’s going on, but that’s unsurprising since the new owner eliminated the employees dedicated to keeping the API up and running smoothly, including the developer evangelists who previously provided communication with third-parties.

We wouldn’t know whom to reach out to at Twitter even if such people existed. We’re in the dark just as much as you are, sadly.

We are sorry to say that the app’s sudden and undignified demise is due to an unannounced and undocumented policy change by an increasingly capricious Twitter – a Twitter that we no longer recognize as trustworthy nor want to work with any longer.

What bothers me about Twitterrific’s final day is that it was not dignified. There was no advance notice for its creators, customers just got a weird error, and no one is explaining what’s going on. We had no chance to thank customers who have been with us for over a decade. Instead, it’s just another scene in their ongoing shit show.

And yeah, that's it. The best way to use Twitter, and the only reason I used Twitter, is gone like that, possibly taking a small business with it, because a fragile billionaire flipped a switch.

In a new tweet posted to the official Twitter Dev profile, which is focused on providing useful information for developers working with the Twitter API, the company said it is “enforcing its long-standing API rules.” As a result, it acknowledges that some apps are “not working.”

The statement doesn’t say what rules are being changed, and why the company didn’t inform Twitter’s third-party client developers in advance about this change.

Today’s statement from Twitter changes nothing for both users and developers, who now have no idea whether this is the end of their apps or not.

What Twitter is doing to developers is simply disrespectful. Twitter was built around third-party clients, and even the official iOS app only exists today because Twitter acquired Tweetie (a third-party Twitter app for iPhone) in 2010. There are many developers today who devote their work to creating great third-party clients for Twitter, and now they might just lose their jobs.

What’s infuriating is how clueless, classless, and cowardly this move was. Not only does pulling the plug without any announcement or explanation—let alone any warning!—disrespect the developers who worked with Twitter for years, but it directly disrespects Twitter’s own customers, many of whom contribute a lot of free content to the overall platform. Why do this quietly one evening and never make a public announcement? Why not just announce that the API would be shut off for client apps next week, or at the end of the month?

And they couldn’t even do it right. Numerous third-party client apps are still functional… just not the biggest names on the biggest platforms. A classess operation, an unnecessary PR own-goal, and a botched technical roll-out. Sounds par for the course for today’s Twitter.

“Twitterrific was our flagship app, and by far earned the most of any of our pieces of software we’ve produced. Its loss is still being felt revenue-wise to this day. We’re hopeful that Tapestry will help us regain some of that ground and help us keep our company healthy, doing the things we love to do — developing great, friendly and useful apps for iOS and macOS.”

The linked article though is quite interesting in what it reveals from all of this. When you consider both Twitter and Reddit did this to their users and 3rd party devs, there is a trend towards these more private centralised social networks to have restrictions in the way of 3rd party access. Whilst on the decentralised social networks the trend tends to be using an open protocol, and usually also supporting open RSS feeds.

So, Tapestry is tapping into this more open ecosystem: “This isn’t really a social media client directly in the mold of Twitterrific; instead, it’s a single place to view online stuff that matters, and it mostly uses open standards like ActivityPub and RSS. Luckily for them, they’ve already reached their $100,000 minimum funding goal.”

Its intention is not to replace any existing clients, although with all the decentralised social networks I’ve been involved with, their devs all openly encourage having different 3rd party client apps.

But it’s what is not directly stated in the linked article that concerns me the most, and I’ve heard others also echoing this sentiment, especially some journalists who have “jumped ship” from Twitter to Mastodon and other networks. The issue is around quality content creation, especially news. It’s not that there is no such news on the decentralised social networks, it’s that there are still too many mainstream news services, journalists, and governments stuck fast on Twitter, Reddit, etc. So many users are also just stuck in their bubble in the same places.

We do really need to see that final seismic shift across to embracing an open and decentralised social network ecosystem. Certainly, the Fediverse, built on the ActivityPub protocol, is not the only option out there, but it is an open standard endorsed social network and has gained a lot of content and user traction.

The way I understand Tapestry, is that it would not only help provide an integrated (single) view of the Fediverse (yes most existing ActivityPub apps can also do that), but it can also seamlessly include discovering and following content from Bluesky, and many others, including potentially even Nostr (via RSS feeds).

So, Tapestry may help provide some cohesion and single view that many users and content creators, who are still stuck on Twitter, Reddit, etc, seem to crave/demand. Many such users are actually caught up in indecision over “where must I pick to move to”. With something like Tapestry, that fear may disappear, and for creators such as news and governments they would be more easily “found and followed” through one single app like Tapestry.

Will it happen? I think so as the vast majority of users are often solely content consumers, and whilst it is true that to develop a high-quality app from the ground up takes cash, Iconfactory does have that experience and they have raised over US$100,000 to fund their app development.

Who knows, I’d expect this app to even go further, and start to support likes and comments for some of the networks it integrates with over time.

I’m heartbroken that Twitterrific had to die and I don’t suppose Iconfactory plans to build a Mastodon app. Twitterrific developer Craig Hockenberry mentioned in his blog post that the new Mastodon apps are excellent to help with the transition but they ignore the scale and possibilities of ActivityPub. 

I can understand that. I mean, Mastodon is clearly the flagship ActivityPub client right now but its nature means you can see status updates or posts from people posting using other environments such as Pleroma, Misskey, CalcKey, Friendica, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Takahe, micro.blog, etc which are not Mastodon and not fully compatible with the Mastodon API, but they kind of work similarly in some ways yet at the same time quite differently as well.

Should one build an all encompassing Activity Pub app? I don’t think so because it would end up as a big confusing hot mess. Apps optimized for individual services are still the way to go  in my opinion. I’m still hopeful that there’s an Iconfactory take that can accommodate the Fediverse because the team has always managed to come up with innovative designs and user experience. They’ve never been afraid of experimenting with different approaches to the same problem.

Maybe they have something in mind already or secretly have been building something, maybe they haven’t. Given the response they gave to being abruptly shut out of Twitter, maybe they’re going to take some time before deciding on their next step.

On Friday, 13 January 2023, Twitter turned off access to most third party Twitter clients. People who used apps like Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and Echofon were suddenly shut out of their apps, faced with a screen that told them there’s an authentication issue. 

It’s not the first time third party apps were given the shaft by the company but this time there were no warnings, no official statements acknowledging the matter, no explanations. It’s as if millions of voices were suddenly silenced.

While there had been internal discussions about the ban, it wasn’t until almost a week later that there was an official word and even then there was no public communication that third party apps are no longer allowed. Engadget found out by diving into Twitter’s developer terms which were only just updated yesterday.

Twitterrific developer Craig Hockenberry was rightly incensed about the move, and his Iconfactory colleague Sean Heber wrote about having to shut down the app after 16 years. It’s absolutely clear that Twitter is no longer the same company as it was a year ago or even six months ago.