New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….
Original story (published on January 13, 2023) follows:
Twitter, the successful social network (now under the administration of Elon Musk) can be experienced in different ways. Just as you can use the website and the official app, there are third-party clients as well.
Tweetbot and Twitterrific are two of the most popular third-party Twitter clients. However, it looks like they (and others) are in the middle of an outage right now.
According to multiple reports, Tweetbot, Twitterrific and other third-party clients are currently down or not working due to a possible Twitter API outage.
Tweetbot & Twitterrific down or not working for multiple users
Several Tweetbot users are reporting that the client is down as they are unable to access it or are being logged out of their accounts.
Twitterrific users are also reporting a similar situation, as they are getting logged out of their accounts without a way to re-access the client.
Other popular Twitter third-party clients or apps like Fenix and Talon are also down at this time. However, Tweetdeck is not affected by the issue since it was bought by Twitter a while ago (so it is like an official client).
An outage in the Twitter API could be the culprit
Apparently, the culprit of the situation could be the Twitter API being down. The Twitter API is what allows external clients to connect with Twitter accounts.
In this way, users can log in to those clients and enjoy the native Twitter features and the additional client features.
That said, an outage in the Twitter API means that third-party clients will not be able to communicate with the main platform. Therefore, these will stop working until the issue is resolved.
There is still no official word on this issue from the Twitter team. We will update this story as events unfold.
Update 1 (January 13, 2023)
10:25 am (IST): Twitterrific team confirmed that they are aware of the issue, but still don’t know the exact cause.
Tweetbot team is also aware of the situation. They even tried to reach out to Twitter for more details about it but haven’t gotten a response yet.
We’re hoping this is just a temporary glitch and will let you know more as soon as we know more. Source
Update 2 (January 16, 2023)
07:06 pm (IST): The clients of WPP-owned GroupM, a well known ad-buying firm, have reportedly reduced their spending on Twitter by around 40-50% after Elon Musk’s acquisition.
And the company is now offering incentives to advertisers to get them back.
Update 3 (January 18, 2023)
80:43 am (IST): What appeared to be an outage in the Twitter API is actually an intentional change on the part of the development team, as they just confirmed:
The change is making multiple Twitter third-party clients not work. Apparently, developers will have to adapt their clients to the new API.
12:27 pm (IST): Tapbots, the Tweetbots devs, are now asking Twitter to provide more information on their recent API changes so they can adapt to them.
Update 4 (January 20, 2023)
11:18 am (IST): Twitter has officially confirmed that they’ve banned third-party clients on the platform. According to new rules, you cannot use Twitter’s API or content to create a similar service or product to the Twitter applications.
03:23 pm (IST): Twitterrific has reportedly removed its app from the App Store. Moreover, other third-party clients have also begun offloading their apps from different app stores
Update 5 (January 23, 2023)
11:01 am (IST): TweetCaster is another third-party client for Twitter that has been removed from the Play Store. And those who have it installed aren’t able to use it as the app is no longer working for them (1, 2).
06:53 pm (IST): Twitter has officially banned third-party clients keeping in mind the new developer guidelines. Consequently, it will no longer allow third-party developers to create clients(1,2,3,4).
Update 6 (January 24, 2023)
05:40 pm (IST): After Twitter banned third-party apps like Tweetcaster, Tweetbot and others, TweetDeck and Hootsuite are the popular alternatives you can checkout. More on that here.
Update 7 (Febuary 02, 2023)
02:35 pm (IST): Starting February 9, Twitter will no longer support free access to their APIs. Instead, a paid basic tier will be available from then onwards.
Featured Image: Tweetbot
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