I can tell you right now I’m not happy about this article and I think very few people are. If you read my last article you know that Twitter bought Tweetie branding them as their favorite application. They are changing the name to “Twitter for iPhone.” Why are they taking the happy name “Tweetie” that Loren said wasn’t as scary as “Twittelator” the Arnold Schwarzenegger of iPhone Twitter clients. You don’t think he said this? Check out this video of him speaking for the Stanford iPhone application development class (iTunes Link). Twitter decided to switch the name for one reason SEO. I’m not sure if SEO is what you would call it for the application store but that’s why. Uniformed people go to the store and type “Twitter” in which case Echofon comes up first and Tweetie 2 is about 15th, yet Tweetie is arguably the best Twitter client on the iPhone (ignore Tweetdeck it’s a different story).
So why is everyone angry about this? They have a good reason to be, a good many reasons. First of which this is discouraging development of other applications (like Nambu), since Twitter branded themselves its very hard to compete with the initial creator of the entire system.
Tapbots
This hit me right in the face when I read a brand new post from Tapbots today. Tapbots are the fantastic developers behind some amazing applications WeightBot, an application for tracking your weight Convertbot, an awesome conversion application with a one of a kind UI and Pastebot, reviewed by MacLife with the title “Pastebot Will Change Your Life.”
In the same presentation mentioned before Loren talked about how his UI for Tweetie, using Apple design elements, was ideal for users since they already know how the controls work. He then said the only company that can get away with changing that and still come out on top is Tapbots, which is very true. Everyone of their application interfaces is created completely from scratch and looks nothing like the normal Apple designed applications but they are still perfectly function and intuitive. Their article “Say Hello to Tweetbot” made me want to break down in tears. To sum it up they announced that the application they have been working on for about the last 2 months was, you guessed it, a Twitter client.
This presents problems not only for Tapbots but for every developer working on, or maintaining a Twitter application. First off it will be very hard to charge for you application anymore. Tweetie was previously $2.99, not a bad price for such a great application, but more than free nonetheless. Now that Twitter bought it, besides just changing its name, they are releasing it in the App Store for free. Developers can say good bye to much of their profits from Twitter applications. Not only will “Twitter for iPhone” be the first application in almost all searches its arguably the best application in the store now. Tapbots put it this way “We probably won’t be able to charge for the app anymore. Who’s going to pay for a Twitter client when “Tweetie” is free?” Which was a little bit better than how John Gruber put it “…And there’s going to be some heavy drinking tonight from developers of other iPhone OS Twitter API clients.”
Everyone has a reason to be angry. Twitter had no reason to need to take over Tweetie, at least none that we can see at the moment (unless its for mobile advertising). Besides to try and get more people using Twitter because of a sexy iPhone application. If that’s all they need then they sell out easily…
Technicalities
Getting to more of the technical side of things, many people have been asking some unanswerable questions. Like will the new versions of Tweetie get preferential service because it’s directly developed by Twitter? Tapbots asks 4 major questions that seem to be the biggest overall.
1. Will the official Twitter client gain access to private APIs that others can’t access? There has been a lot of crap about Apple’s ‘AdLib‘ Framework that was used to build the iPad user guide that acts exactly like a native application yet it is unusable by other web developers who would love to have the awesome interface for their web apps. Along with Apple using other controls like the brightness control in iBooks that developers cannot access which makes other E-Book readers insufficient comparatively.
2. Will it get a higher query limit? Will Tweetie be able to call the API more times than the rest of the applications just because of its direct integration with Twitter.
3. Will it be the only client to have true push notification? This coincides with the first question about private APIs. If Twitter allowed direct access to the ‘Fire hose’ or direct flow of tweets from Twitter rather than having to call the API, Tweetie would immediately become the most function Twitter application around with true push notification abilities.
4. Will they eventually kill all 3rd party iPhone/iPad clients to prevent confusion between their app and all the rest? If Twitter integrates advertising into the new flavor of Tweetie this could actually be possible. Twitter could cut off the API all together and maintain a closed environment very close to what Apple does with the application store. This way everyone would receive the same experience using Twitter and they could rake in all the advertising money they so desired. Finally a way to monetize Twitter…Yay…
Roundup
Tapbots did finish their post on a happy note, this made them more anxious to finish their application and get it on the market. I for one will be switching over for a few reasons. First off I know it will be awesome, because all their other applications are, and I am planning to boycott Tweetie as soon as it becomes “Twitter for iPhone.” I’m very opposed to what they are doing and think that it really is the big man bullying the smaller developers who should get the credit for making Twitter what it is today.
About Bob
