Twitter's new restrictions on its most avid users are designed to force more people, and ads, onto the app.
Twitter has finally gone through with changes to its API that restrict features offered by popular third-party apps like Tweetbot, Twitterrific, Talons and Tweetings. Some, like Favstar, have already gone offline since Twitter made the decision to wrest control of its social service away from outside developers responsible for so many of the platform's most popular and vital features.
"We feel the best Twitter experience we can provide today is through our owned and operated Twitter for iOS and Android apps, as well as desktop and mobile twitter.com," senior Twitter product direction Rob Johnson said in a blog post on the move.
"We know some of you don't like this more focused approach. There are good reasons you love the various Twitter apps you have used over the years, and we're grateful for the developers who build them."
The changes to the API will bar many users of third-party apps from updating their feed quickly, delay notifications for messages, and completely disable notifications for likes, retweets, follows, and quotes. Other tracking features have also been disabled, and Twitter stated emphatically that they will not be replacing these functions with their new Account Activity API.
In a letter written to Twitter employees yesterday, Johnson put the onus on third-party apps while acknowledging that the company has not been good about explaining a variety of moves designed to set limitations on the reach of third-party apps.
"In 2011, we told developers (in an email) not to build apps that mimic the core Twitter experience. In 2012, we announced changes to our developer policies intended to make these limitations clearer by capping the number of users allowed for a 3rd party client," Johnson wrote.
"It's time to make the hard decision to end support for these legacy APIs -- acknowledging that some aspects of these apps would be degraded as a result. Today, we are facing technical and business constraints we can't ignore," he added.
"The User Streams and Site Streams APIs that serve core functions of many of these clients have been in a 'beta' state for more than 9 years, and are built on a technology stack we no longer support."
Johnson's message to Twitter employees was a bit different than the public post he sent out, which trumpeted Twitter's own app and web platform over any third-party apps. He claimed the changes to Twitter would help the company control "troll-like behavior," enforce guidelines, quicken search functions, and more.
Many of the app developers affected by the move blamed it advertising dollars, claiming Twitter was trying to force its most avid users to use their platforms to increase ad revenue.
Twitter user Ash McAllan criticized the changes but said users had no choice but to accept the changes because it was difficult to re-create the communities that have formed on the platform.
"Yes, Twitter as a platform is bad and getting worse, but I cannot afford to migrate away from a system where I've built a community and audience I love in favour of other platforms where that's actively harder to do," she wrote. "Marginalised folks can't afford to 'just rebuild'."
Johnson was open about the already-negative responses to the changes, even citing the #breakingmytwitter movement growing on the platform while claiming the company was "committed" to understanding why so many of its users liked third-party applications better than the Twitter app itself.
"We are not changing our rules or setting out to 'kill' 3rd party clients; but we are killing, out of operational necessity, some of the legacy APis that power some features of those clients," Johnson said, claiming that it "wasn't realistic for us to invest in building a totally new service to replace all of the functionality of these APIs."
Outside developers have been integral to Twitter's success and popularization over the years, creating and spearheading some of the apps' now integral features like the hashtag and the quick refresh feature.
"3rd party clients have had a notable impact on the Twitter service and the products we built. Independent developers built the first Twitter client for Mac and the first native app for iPhone. These clients pioneered product features we all know and love," Johnson said on Twitter.
New York Magazine highlighted the fact that even the word "tweet" was created by outside developers who needed a design-friendly term for the act of sending a Twitter message. Twitter absorbed Tweetdeck after it became a popular third-party app for many of their most avid users.
Twitter had to push back the date the changes would take effect after announcing it last year. They originally planned to institute the changes in June but pushed it back to this month to give third-party apps more time to update themselves in advance. Many of the most popular third-party apps have already released updates to their apps with reduced and scaled back features, much to the dismay of users.
*this article was featured on Download.com on August 17, 2018: https://download.cnet.com/blog/download-blog/twitter-disables-core-features-on-third-party-apps-like-tweetbot-with-recent-api-changes/