Twitterrific and other third-party Twitter clients to shut down

Jan 23, 2023

This move comes after Twitter started blocking third-party clients without explanations, citing breach of its API rules to restrict creation of similar applications.

Twitterrific, one of the oldest third-party Twitter clients, has removed its iOS and Mac apps from the App Store.

The reason for this move was stated as an unannounced policy change under Elon Musk’s management and that the social media network has become ‘a Twitter that we no longer recognize as trustworthy nor want to work with any longer.’

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The app has had a rich association with Twitter. It was one of the first mobile and desktop clients for the platform, and it helped form the word “Tweet.” Twitterrific was built back in 2007 — even before Twitter made its own iOS app and has contributed to things like the bird logo, character count and conversations (replies).

Twitterrific’s demise comes after Twitter intentionally started blocking third-party clients last Friday without any explanation. Earlier this week, the TwitterDev account posted that the company had been suspending these apps in breach of “its longstanding API rules.” But it didn’t specify which rules were broken.

Late Thursday, Twitter updated its developer terms to list ‘use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.’ under restricted usage of its APIs.

A ton of other apps have started to remove or are preparing to remove their apps from different app stores. Tweetbot has already pulled the Mac client from the App Store and the iOS app will follow soon.