Tweetbot rides the NewNewTwitter wave
For a strong take on what people don't like about the new Twitter iPhone app, read John Gruber's article, “R.I.P. Tweetie.” And then, you might want to check out Tweetbot, which seems to be the unofficial-Twitter-app-of-choice on the iPhone these days.
Context & Ripple Effects
Twitter's rollout of its redesigned official iPhone app has handed an opening to independent client makers: John Gruber's widely read 'R.I.P. Tweetie' critique of the new app crystallized dissatisfaction, and Tapbots' Tweetbot has picked up the displaced users, becoming what SplatF calls the unofficial Twitter app of choice on the iPhone. The dynamic echoes Gruber's long-running argument that the iPhone's edge over Android is precisely this tier of polished third-party software.
First-order effects
- Tapbots gets a demand surge it did not have to advertise for — Twitter's own redesign is doing the customer acquisition, pushing iPhone users toward a paid third-party client.
- Twitter's official iPhone app becomes the baseline product that clients like Tweetbot now differentiate against rather than complement.
Second-order effects
- Tweetbot's traction makes the case that iPhone users will pay real money for a superior client on top of a free official app, raising the bar for every other developer in the Twitter client market.
- The episode sharpens the iOS-versus-Android quality gap Gruber has flagged: premium third-party clients of this kind are an iPhone-store phenomenon, giving Apple another differentiator it does not have to build.
Third-order effects
- Every third-party Twitter client is structurally dependent on the platform owner's API terms — the more successful clients like Tweetbot become, the more of their business sits on infrastructure Twitter controls and can reprice or restrict at will.
- If official first-party apps keep regressing on design while third parties iterate faster, platform owners face a recurring choice between tolerating a thriving client ecosystem and absorbing it.
The trend: Premium third-party clients are building a paid software layer on top of free official apps, with their viability ultimately set by the platform owner's API policies.