Tweetbot, Twitterrific, Fenix, Talon, and other third-party Twitter apps are broken; Twitter has given no explanation and developers say they haven't heard back
Last night at about 7:30pm PST, Twitterrific customers started … Chance Miller / 9to5Mac : Tweetbot and other Twitter apps still broken as Elon Musk stays silent Mitchell Clark / The Verge : Twitter apps are still broken and Musk is still silent Rob Pegoraro / PCMag : Third-Party Twitter Apps Stop Working in What Appears to Be a Widespread Outage Thomas Claburn / The Register : Third-party Twitter apps stopped dead with no explanation from El Musko Mike Masnick / Techdirt : Latest Twitter Problem: Its API Has Been Down And No Info Has Been Provided Nehal Malik / iPhone in Canada Blog : Third-Party Twitter Apps Such as Twitterrific, Tweetbot Stop Working for Reasons Unknown Jonathan Lamont / MobileSyrup : Several third-party Twitter clients not working amid API issues Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch : Third-party Twitter apps are facing issues, users say John Gruber / Daring Fireball : The End May Be Nigh for Third-Party Twitter Clients Todd Spangler / Variety : Third-Party Twitter Apps Break: Users Say They're Unable to Log In to Social Network Laurent Giret / Thurrott : Twitter API Outage is Currently Breaking Third-Party Clients Lauren Leffer / Gizmodo : Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and Other Third-Party Twitter Apps Are Busted Michael Tsai : Twitter API Down — Ben Schoon (Hacker News, Tweetbot, Twitterrific, echofon): Fawad Murtaza / Notebookcheck.net : Third-party Twitter apps like Twitterrific and Tweetbot reportedly down for many David Becker / Appleosophy : Third-party Twitter apps experiencing functionality issues Joe Rice-Jones / KnowTechie : Twitter API reportedly down, many third-party clients broken Oliver Haslam / iMore : Third-party Twitter apps including Tweetbot and Twitterrific are offline, but why? Mariella Moon / Engadget : Some third-party Twitter apps aren't working right now Takeuchi Hiroaki / Twitter Developers : Many apps SUSPENDED — Many apps suddenly became unavailable around 2023/1/13 12:30 JST. Tapbots / App Store : Tweetbot for Twitter 17+ — Screenshots — Tweetbot is an award-winning Twitter client for iOS and the Mac. Mastodon: Glenn Fleishman / @glennf@twit.social : I just figured out why Elon Musk pulled the plug abruptly on third-party Twitter apps. It's an experiment. He's not communicatinganything he's doing for that reason. … John Gruber / @gruber@mastodon.social : Feels like a milestone: I don't think I've changed an app in my iPhone dock since we turned off the lights on Vesper. Paul Haddad / @paul@tapbots.social : Almost 24 hours later and still no official/unofficial info from inside Twitter. I'm going to continue as if this was all done on purpose. — What now? Ivory goes into hyper mode with just the absolute minimum 3-4 things that have to be done finished up and then off to Apple. … Andrew Leahey / @andrew@esq.social : Birdsite #developer agreement seems to suggest they'd need to give notice before yoinking the plug on the API. — Any #law folks who do this kind of work and can speak better to it want to weigh in? — I am but a humble tax clown. … Federico Viticci / @viticci@mastodon.macstories.net : As we're witnessing the (sad, but unsurprising) shutdown of third-party Twitter clients, let me share this story from 2012: — I was about to start chemo in January, and I asked @paul if they could send me an early beta of the iPad version. … Jackson Palmer / @ummjackson@mastodon.social : Fun fact: Birdsite has an undocumented “guest” API token that some tools make use of to avoid requiring any form of authentication. — Here's an example of how RSS Bridge does it: https://github.com/... Chris Trottier / @atomicpoet@mastodon.social : 3rd party Twitter clients no longer have access to Twitter's API. — The response from Twitter? Silence. — That Twitter won't say anything is egregious. It demonstrates they should never be trusted with any developer ecosystem again. … Charlie O'Hara / @whalecoiner@indieweb.social : Recalling every smug little chud who would say “lol, you're using the Twitter website!?” if you complained about something in the interface. How's it going today, lads? #Twitter — https://www.theverge.com/... @FinchHaven@mastodon.sdf.org : @jducoeur — Which brings up another issue — What are #Apple and the #AppStore and #Google / #GooglePlay going to have to say to #ElonMusk and #Twitter if #Musk has just vaporized the functionality of a shite-ton of iOS and Android Twitter apps? … Anders Puck Nielsen / @anderspuck@krigskunst.social : Looks like for @gruber it's now #Mastodon before #Twitter. John Gruber is the author of the Daring Fireball blog and the inventor of Markdown. — Quoting @gruber : … Jordan Kay / @_Jordan@mastodon.social : If they're killing Twitterrific they can't call them “tweets” anymore. I don't make the rules https://furbo.org/... CC: @blaine @kaarlows@social.vivaldi.net : @andcam @ummjackson @sandofsky — “And risk that those users will take a proportion of their followers with them to an alternative platform.” — Disagree. … Jackson Palmer / @ummjackson@mastodon.social : @sandofsky A reduction in ads is also one of the marketed benefits of the recently launched paid subscription, so an app which gives that away for free (even better, zero ads) could be seen as a threat to that. Danilo / @danilo@hachyderm.io : This is no shade at all on the fine folks at Tapbots, whose Masto client, Ivory, I eagerly anticipate. — But there's a good technology lesson here on cutting losses. … Dan Patterson / @danpatterson@mastodon.social : End of an era Jackson Palmer / @ummjackson@mastodon.social : TBH, I assumed all third-party apps that bypassed Birdsite making ad revenue would be blocked far sooner than now. 🤷♂️ Ben Sandofsky / @sandofsky@mastodon.social : A tiny fraction of Twitter users use third-party apps. So put yourself in the shoes of a bean counter... “We can't serve ads. We can't sell a subscription. The API costs money. … Ivory / @ivory@tapbots.social : As some of you may have heard, Tweetbot is currently unable to authenticate with Twitter which currently has a huge impact on our business. Only mentioning this because we are going to be busy putting out fires and trying to get Ivory on the App Store ASAP. … Geoffrey A. Fowler / @geoffreyfowler@federated.press : More evidence Twitter verification isn't verifying much: — It just gave a grey check for government to a fake Congressman. — Twitter account @RepZachNunn even says Parody. Real @ZachNunn has no check. … Dan Gillmor / @dangillmor@mastodon.social : Whether it's malign policy or broken technology, Twitter's disabling of 3rd party apps is only the latest reason why anyone who relies on the bird site should be migrating elsewhere. … Jackson Palmer / @ummjackson@mastodon.social : @donmacdonald @kaarlows @andcam @sandofsky I think people are underestimating how high a % of the dopamine-addicted posters will just eat it and install the official Birdsite app. Jason Snell / @jsnell@mastodon.social : FWIW, I heard from someone who says someone at Twitter told them the API shutdown is absolutely intentional. 🤷🏻♂️ I have no way to know if that's legit or not, but it sure wouldn't surprise me. Vincent Cloutier / @vincent@social.librem.one : So it looks like Twitter has banned all third-party clients this morning, but bird.makeup is unaffected. — So this mean that for example Tweetbot users could switch to @ivory + bird.makeup to get back the lost functionality. … Sean Heber / @bigzaphod@mastodon.social : Getting some notifications today for some reason. Sean Heber / @bigzaphod@mastodon.social : We still haven't heard anything official from Twitter about Twitterrific, Tweetbot, and others being suspended: https://blog.iconfactory.com/ ... Paul Haddad / @paul@tapbots.social : @caseynewton multiple 3rd party clients, no communication as to if its a bug or ... Casey Newton / @caseynewton@mastodon.social : Tweetbot broken for anyone else? Jay / @jsit@social.coop : Not working: — Tweetbot iOS — Tweetbot macOS — Twitterrific iOS — Fenix macOS — Working: — Spring macOS — Spring iOS — Twitterrific macOS — Fenix iOS — Aviary 2 iOS … Craig Hockenberry / @chockenberry@mastodon.social : @paul @caseynewton Can confirm: we are currently suspended on iOS. Weirdly, macOS is fine. @glindsey@mastodon.social : Update: Twitteriffic, other third-party clients also affected. One user reports Twitter's OAuth server is returning a 404, which would definitely explain it. So the question is... deliberate, or is Daddy Musk randomly shutting off servers again, possibly while extremely high? Jay / @jsit@social.coop : #Tweetbot 2 still has access to #Twitter — @paul Chris Trottier / @atomicpoet@mastodon.social : Word is that 3rd party Twitter clients can't access Twitter right now. — Either this is an outage or a new “policy decision”. — Whatever the case, this is bad news for Twitter's survival. Sean Heber / @bigzaphod@mastodon.social : Suspecting this is somehow based on app usage - Twitterrific for macOS appears to still be working and has a different Twitter app id. Bill Barol / @billbarol@journa.host : It sure looks like Elon just realized 3rd-party apps like my beloved Tweetbot allowed users to skip ads and force a chronological timeline — or as I think of it, “made Twitter bearable” — and killed API access. … Tweets: @tweetbot : Tweetbot and other clients are experiencing problems logging in to Twitter. We've reached out to Twitter for more details, but haven't heard back. We're hoping this is just a temporary glitch and will let you know more as soon as we know more. @twitterrific : We're aware that Twitterrific is having problems communicating with Twitter. We don't yet know what the root cause is, but we're trying to find out. Please stay tuned and apologies. @ivanthek : @Psythor ... The API is fine. Apparently they're blocking or have expired the credentials of certain clients. Troy Hunt / @troyhunt : I find it hard to believe that 3rd party apps would have been killed without warning, even stupid decisions like blocking links to other social platforms had comms around them. But hey, who knows, I just want a client that maintains scroll position on mentions across devices 🤷♂️ Troy Hunt / @troyhunt : Working on the assumption that Twitter may have deliberately killed off third party apps, I got to wondering: are there any third party apps for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok et al? And if not, why not? Peter Steinberger / @steipete : That's why it sucks so much to be dependent on other platforms. https://blog.iconfactory.com/ ... Spencer Cox / @spencerjcox : The bad news is that twitter appears to have killed Tweetbot and other 3rd party apps (without telling anyone). The good news is that I won't be using twitter nearly as much (seriously, how do people use this awful native app?) https://techcrunch.com/... @kottke : Twitter has apparently shut down access to several of the most popular 3rd-party Twitter clients, including Twitterrific and Tweetbot. No official word on whether it's a bug or a policy, but either way: so dumb. Erratic clown car company. https://blog.iconfactory.com/ ... Pete Brown / @pjbrown_iii : The #Twitter API has long been a point of discussion as it is what enabled a flourishing market of 3rd-party apps to access Twitter Jack limited the API greatly, while #Elon said it needed to be reworked & improved Now, it's broken & they're silent Walled-garden is growing 🙃 https://twitter.com/... David Bisset / @dimensionmedia : Twitter app makers don't know much right now, the best place to follow their conversations is ironically on Mastodon right now. If you find more meaningful discussion about your social network APIs on ANOTHER social network then that's a BAD sign. https://twitter.com/... Harry McCracken / @harrymccracken : Twitter not explaining or even acknowledging what's going on shows a certain contempt not just for developers of third-party apps but also a percentage of its own users, including some pretty influential ones. https://9to5google.com/... @ttscoff : It sure would be a bucket of stupid if Elno killed third-party Twitter apps. Like they didn't already jump through enough hoops for Jack. https://techcrunch.com/... Fingers crossed for @TweetBot. Please don't let this be as asinine as it appears. Andy Diggle / @andydiggle : Third-party clients like Tweetbot and Twitteriffic suddenly can't access Twitter. If you-know-who has decided we have to use Twitter's own shitty interface, I'll be using this site a lot less. https://techcrunch.com/... Alex Heath / @alexeheath : Twitter appears to have cut off outside developers https://twitter.com/... @jeremiahlee : Meanwhile, I tried 5 new Mastodon client apps just today. So much innovation! Reminds me of early days of Twitter. App developers have found a better platform. Have you? https://twitter.com/... Rhys Morgan / @rhysmorgan : If I'm forced to use the official client all the time, I'm out! The official client is nothing compared to third-party clients like Tweetbot, which literally made Twitter. https://twitter.com/... Alex Howard / @digiphile : I've been unable to use @Tweetbot for weeks. It appears @TwitterSupport for other third party clients is out: https://www.theverge.com/... It may be a tech problem (API) because of staff leaving or fired. It could also be a policy choice I've been expecting, without any communication @chrismessina : Lol, that chapter closed quickly. Or if killing the API is what “investment” looks like, good luck! https://www.techmeme.com/... #DeadTwitter https://twitter.com/... Gary Whitta / @garywhitta : Sure is looking like Elon shut off all the third-party twitter apps. Barton Gellman / @bartongellman : Losing access to Tweetbot and other third party clients would be pretty bad. Twitter, tell me you're fixing this. @TwitterEng @TwitterAPI @TwitterSupport https://twitter.com/... Susan Wayland / @susanwayland : I got automatically logged out over night but my old login does still work. Using the official Twitter app as well as Plum and Albatross meanwhile. Thx! Thought that account vanished like my 1.4Mio Facebook page because of courtyard guidelines. #FreeSpeech https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Hillel Fuld / @hilzfuld : So the Twitter API is down so there are two options: 1- It's a temporary issue that'll be fixed momentarily. 2- Musk just killed the API and sent all 3rd party apps and millions of power users to the grave. I sure hope it's 1 because that would be a death wish for Twitter. 🙏 Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : A friend mentioned to me that notifications no longer work since they don't get notified of my tweets. Now all 3rd party Twitter clients are broken. The expected slow decay of Twitter is happening and it's depressing because none of this had to happen. https://9to5google.com/... Kate Bevan / @katebevan : If this is deliberate, it's incredibly stupid, as it will drive power users away https://twitter.com/... Aura / @aurahack : twitter api is down and if it's for good i am absolutely never using twitter on my phone again i'd rather eat glass than use the official app Josh Taylor / @joshgnosis : “We asked Twitter but haven't heard back” - 2023 adage https://twitter.com/... Mike Finger / @mikefinger : While everyone complained about ads and nonchronological timelines, I was over here staying quiet about Tweetbot and hoping the doofus overlord wouldn't notice, but tonight it looks like he finally killed it. Jordan K. Green / @jordonaut : Tweetbot goes down and I get on the iOS app for the first time in forever. Literally me right now: https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Dan Diamond / @ddiamond : If this is the end for @tweetbot, I will miss it terribly — made my Twitter experience better for a decade. https://twitter.com/... Basic Apple Guy / @basicappleguy : Tweetbot & Twitterrific are both unable to authenticate & access Twitter... https://twitter.com/... Mirthe Mertens / @mirthe_ : If this turns out NOT to be temporary, I'm gone. I hate the Twitter website and app, and refuse to use it. Too much junk there. @tweetbot makes Twitter enjoyable for me, so if Musk doesn't allow for third party apps to be used anymore, I'm gone. https://twitter.com/... James O'Malley / @psythor : It's *very* ominous that it is numerous third party clients that are not working, and other API users appear to be fine. https://twitter.com/... @jonyiveparody : Using the official Twitter app after using Tweetbot for over a decade: https://twitter.com/... Patrick Monahan / @pattymo : If Twitter killed the API so third party clients don't work, that would deserve zero Reddit gold or whatever they're looking for here. Negative Reddit gold, even Eva / @evacide : Is the Twitter API just down or did Twitter unceremoniously kill it? I give it even odds. Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : Has Twitter deliberately just blocked all third-party apps or is that another screw up? (The native Twitter UX is so bad, and getting worse, that I avoid if at all possible) Jeff Geerling / @geerlingguy : If Tweetbot goes, I go. https://twitter.com/... Matthew Prince / @eastdakota : It's as if Twitter were running through the perfect playbook to ensure I no longer regularly check its feed. https://9to5google.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : (I was just thinking that Elon hadn't done something dumb to make Twitter worse in at least two weeks, and here we are)