Tweetbot, Twitteriffic, and other popular third-party clients for Twitter are still completely broken due to issues with Twitter’s API. Despite growing complaints from Twitter users and developers alike, Elon Musk has remained silent. This is leading some people to speculate that this change is intentional and that Twitter is shutting down third-party clients altogether.
Source: 9to5Mac
So it looks like now under Elon, third-party Twitter applications are in utter shambles, though not all of them yet. From what I understand, some third-party Twitter clients like Spring haven’t been rendered entirely useless. The problem with this whole situation, per the developers of some of the affected apps, is that there’s been no communication from Twitter. While this could be an issue with the API, it could also be a targeted attack at the biggest apps, due to the fact that they don’t show promoted content and thus don’t generate any revenue for the company. Right now everything is speculation, but nothing about it makes Elon or Twitter look good.
I can’t say I’m surprised, though. In the past, Meta cut off third-party API access for Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and also cut off the APIs allowing third-party instagram clients to exist. It seems like part of growing a social network under capitalism is locking out access to your service so it’s the official app or no app at all.
Unfortunately, not allowing developers to access your platform via an API isn’t good for anyone. The hard truth is that API access forces competition in the app space and forces companies like Meta and Twitter to make a better app if they want their users to use the official app. Sadly, they usually go the other way and stifle competition instead.
I recently published a post about some of the reasons I believe Apollo for Reddit is the best Reddit client you can use on iOS. Without a rather robust API, that app would be unable to exist. Reddit’s API isn’t perfect, but what it does allow developers to do is great!
I also think Reddit is one of the more interesting examples when it comes to third-party APIs because of the history of Reddit apps on the iPhone. For those not familiar, the gold standard for the longest time was an app called AlienBlue that got acquired by Reddit and rebranded to the official app. As companies tend to do with something that isn’t broke, they tried to fix it, leading to the inevitable success that Apollo found.
Right now users are leaving Twitter in droves for Mastodon: a decentralized, open-source, social network. The app landscape isn’t fantastic right now (I’ll right about my journey to find my Mastodon client of choice….when I find my Mastodon client of choice), but at least the API is there to allow developers to work on apps.
I think sometimes the people in charge of these social media companies forget that social media is a deeply personal thing to the user and giving them more ways to access your service shouldn’t be viewed as a negative. Social media is driven by engagement and if your app doesn’t have the features I want, or is a pain to use, I’m going to interact with your service less. In the case of the big-name social networks, that also means ad revenue going to their competitor.
There’s a part of me that really hopes the situation with the Twitter API is a huge misunderstanding. While I don’t use Twitter all that much anymore (though I do still publish blog posts there), there’s some really good people making third-party Twitter apps who are now finding their livelihood impacted due to the greediness of yet another billionaire.
Dan Stransky 