What, Twitter? You Don’t Like My Sweet Third-Party Client?

Twitter is playing hardball and sending a cold, hard message to its third-party-client developers: You’re no longer welcome here. In the new updated Developer Agreement and Policy released by the company, they strongly discourage (i.e. ban) any non-Twitter-branded apps.

Party Pooper Twitter

Twitter says they want a “consistent” user experience. What they mean is, they don’t want my awesome personalized home screen that I spent days customizing – that would be too fun. If we’re all using Twitter-approved apps, then isn’t that all the same? Like, we’re all going to the same school, but our uniforms gotta be identical down to the last plaid detail.

Adios Third-Party Developers

Being the great bunch of people that they are, Twitter is allowing existing app developers to survive a grace period of 30 days. On August 16th, the hammer will come down and any non-Twitter third-party developers will be forcibly removed from the platform. So, if you’re thinking of writing your own sweet, sweet twitter app, you’d better get cracking.

Less Features = More Time

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Twitter says they want developers to focus more on “content-based features” rather than “purely UI tweaks”. What that means is, you won’t have to worry about creating more features, but more about how the features are presented. Sure, it may be a bummer to lose all the bells and whistles your third-party app had, but hey, at least you’ll have more time to spend on the important stuff.

Well, That’s a Bummer

Long story short, Twitter isn’t playing around. It’s time to say a sad goodbye to all the wonderful third-party developers out there. Let’s hope Twitter has a change of heart and lets us have our beloved third-party apps back.