Twitter delays API change that may disable push notifications and auto-refreshing timelines on third-party clients like Tweetbot, promises 90 days change notice
but they may not be able to offer full functionality in the future once the change goes through. http://www.theverge.com/... John Sheehan / @johnsheehan : If @TwitterDev breaks TweetBot, I'm gone. #BreakingMyTwitter http://twitter.com/... @twitterrific : Twitter is making changes to its APIs that will break or limit features like live streaming in all third-party clients, including Twitterrific. Learn more http://apps-of-a-feather.com/ #BreakingMyTwitter Dan Frakes / @danfrakes : Hey @TwitterDev This isn't good for users. And in the long run, it isn't good for you: Crippling third-party clients doesn't make me use your own client/website more; it makes me use Twitter less. #BreakingMyTwitter http://apps-of-a-feather.com/ Ceejbot .Plan Not Found / @ceejbot : This might be what gets me to go Mastodon. Twitter's own clients have never, ever been a good way to experience Twitter. http://twitter.com/... Ferrett Steinmetz / @ferretthimself : My life will be an endless series of fleeing decaying social networks in search of better ones. I've done it twice before with Compuserve and LiveJournal, I'm prepped for Twitter to implode. http://twitter.com/... Andy Baio / @waxpancake : The end of Twitter's streaming APIs also means the death of my own project, http://belong.io/. http://www.theverge.com/... Tom Warren / @tomwarren : A delay means nothing. Twitter has never cared about third-party apps after they helped make the platform so successful. https://twitter.com/... Sean Heber / @bigzaphod : I kind of doubt it. It's hard to say without even knowing if we'll get full access, partial access, have to pay for it, etc. but just from the way it works it doesn't seem like it'd be enough to really replicate the full live stream experience. Zac Hall / @apollozac : Twitter's answer to the API problem: changing the deadline to unknown https://9to5mac.com/...
The VergeChris Welch
Context & Ripple Effects
After developers like John Sheehan and Dan Frakes and the makers of Tweetbot and Twitterrific publicly pushed back under #BreakingMyTwitter, Twitter paused an API change that would have disabled push notifications and auto-refreshing timelines in third-party clients, promising 90 days' notice before anything ships.
The reprieve turned out to be a countdown rather than a reversal: within weeks Twitter moved the legacy API shutdown to August 16 while making the paid Account Activity API generally available and cutting free sandbox subscriptions to 15, and by July Twitterrific was already stripping features ahead of the deadline.
First-order effects
Tweetbot and Twitterrific get a 90-day window to migrate or degrade gracefully, but their core value proposition — live timelines and instant notifications — is now on a clock set by Twitter, not by them.
If the pattern holds, independent Twitter clients become maintenance-mode products locked out of first-class platform access, concentrating the reading experience in Twitter's own apps and pricing API access as a premium tier via Account Activity.
The trend: Platform owners are converting open API access into metered, paid infrastructure, using delay-and-deadline cycles to wind down ecosystems they once seeded.
Last year we announced our plan to retire Site Streams & User Streams, and replace them with the Account Activity API (currently in beta). We are delaying the scheduled June 19th deprecation date.
Hey wow, this is actually good news. Sort of. “We're probably still killing them, but we're going to wait a little while until the uproar dies down, then we'll kill them. We may not even announce when, to make sure it stays quiet.” http://twitter.com/...
Phew, Twitter just announced they're delaying the deprecation of the streaming APIs until the Account Activity API is widely available. Thanks for listening, @TwitterDev. http://twitter.com/...
While I deeply understand the complexities of running Twitter's dev platform, and there are no easy decisions here, it would be a grave error to effectively end Mac support by killing Tweetbot. http://twitter.com/...
Pay attention to this - because if they go forward with it, it will break most third party twitter apps with push notifications no longer functioning and timelines no longer automatically refreshing on anything but official apps http://twitter.com/...
Story updated: Twitter has postponed the change that would break 3rd party Twitter apps — but they may not be able to offer full functionality in the future once the change goes through. http://www.theverge.com/...
Twitter is making changes to its APIs that will break or limit features like live streaming in all third-party clients, including Twitterrific. Learn more http://apps-of-a-feather.com/ #BreakingMyTwitter
Hey @TwitterDev This isn't good for users. And in the long run, it isn't good for you: Crippling third-party clients doesn't make me use your own client/website more; it makes me use Twitter less. #BreakingMyTwitter http://apps-of-a-feather.com/
My life will be an endless series of fleeing decaying social networks in search of better ones. I've done it twice before with Compuserve and LiveJournal, I'm prepped for Twitter to implode. http://twitter.com/...
I kind of doubt it. It's hard to say without even knowing if we'll get full access, partial access, have to pay for it, etc. but just from the way it works it doesn't seem like it'd be enough to really replicate the full live stream experience.