For years, third-party Twitter clients have offered alternative ways to access the popular social network for users that weren't fans of Twitter's official apps. These clients have been hugely popular across a variety of platforms, but Twitter's going to essentially break each and every one after June 19, 2018.
Update: Twitter has now chimed in on the matter noting "We are delaying the scheduled June 19th deprecation date...As always, we're committed to providing ample time to migrate. We will provide at least 90 days notice of deprecation date from when the Account Activity API becomes generally available to all developers. More specifics on timing to come."
After that date, Twitter will be eliminating its "streaming services." When this happens, push notifications will no longer work and timelines won't automatically refresh.
Streaming services are being replaced by the new Account Activity API, and while this could be used as a way to keep notifications working as is, the possibility of this happening is looking rather weak. Twitter still hasn't given third-party developers access to the API, and while the free version of it allows for push notifications to work for 35 accounts, pricing details for the Enterprise model that supports an unlimited number of users have yet to be announced.
Also, while the Account Activity API could keep push notifications working, there's currently no way for third-party developers to keep automatic timeline refreshes in place.
Twitter's never been open to developers creating third-party clients that are often better than its own apps, and for years its tried to combat this with a token system.
The folks behind Talon, Tweetbot, Tweetings, and Twitterrific have banned together to raise awareness of this situation, and it's suggesting that users do any of these four things to try and protest the changes:
- Ask @TwitterDev to correct this situation
- Share your feelings using #BreakingMyTwitter
- Talk about it on your podcast or blog
- Spread the word with links to this website.
As a long-time fan of apps like Flamingo, Fenix, and Talon, this news is aggravating, to say the least. Twitter's Android app has gotten considerably better over the years, but there are still a lot of things that other apps do much better. By removing push notifications and automatic timeline refreshes, these apps will be impossible to use as a default client for a lot of users.
What's your take on all this?
