In early January, Elon Musk and Twitter decided to ban third-party apps, citing that it was “enforcing its longstanding API rules.”
The move has not only impacted the developers’ income, but also left them with the difficult decision to refund thousands of subscribers through AppleInsider.
Created before Twitter even had its own native iOS app, Twitterific was a prominent third-party client credited with several “firsts” for the platform, including first using the word “tweet”, first using a Bird icon, the first to show a character counter when typing a tweet, the first to support replies and conversations, and more.
According to a blog post by Sean Heber, Twitterific’s founder, the closure will significantly hurt their business. if you were [a] Subscribers to Twitterrific for iOS, we urge you to consider not requesting a refund from Apple,” he wrote. “Loss of ongoing, recurring revenue from Twitterrific is already going to hurt our business significantly, and any refunds will come straight out of our pockets — not Twitter’s and not Apple’s.”
“To put it simply, thousands of refunds would be devastating for a small business like ours,” he added.
Today marks the end of an era. Unfortunately, we were forced to remove Twitterrific from both the iOS and Mac App Stores.
Twitter’s inexplicable revocation of our API access left the app no way forward. Please read our blog for more information🖖 https://t.co/UZSdmqZtMD
— Twitterrific (@Twitterrific) January 19, 2023
Now both Twitterific and Tweetbot have updated their apps to include an option for subscribers to decline the refund, as reported by DaringFireball. According to the report, all subscriptions to the apps were canceled when Apple decided to remove the App Store. However, users who had an ongoing subscription at the time, such as an annual subscription, can still update to the latest version of the app and tap the “I don’t need a refund” button to show the companies their support.
Musk’s move drew criticism from both developers and users, who accused him of monopolizing the Twitter platform; However, companies are already moving on. Tweetbot developer Tapbots said that as a result of the shutdown, they are now accelerating development of their mastodon app Ivory.
Photo credit: IconFactory
Source: AppleInsider
