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Desktops (Apple) Twitter Software

Twitter Kills Its Mac App (betanews.com) 52

BrianFagioli writes: Twitter has announced that it is killing its Mac app. Without warning, the company pulled the app from the Mac App Store and issued the following tweet. "We're focusing our efforts on a great Twitter experience that's consistent across platforms. So, starting today the Twitter for Mac app will no longer be available for download, and in 30 days will no longer be supported.
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Twitter Kills Its Mac App

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  • by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Saturday February 17, 2018 @10:12AM (#56141556) Homepage Journal

    That's because they are working on a new unified app for Apple's new iOS on the Mac plan.... No need to continue to develop a dead end road.

    • by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Saturday February 17, 2018 @10:14AM (#56141564) Homepage Journal
      Don't you normally keep a version available and maintained until the new one is ready? How am I supposed to tweet from my Mac? A web browser?
      • by tepples ( 727027 )

        How am I supposed to tweet from my Mac? A web browser?

        Yes. What problems have you run into when accessing https://twitter.com/ [twitter.com] from your web browser?

        (And if any, were they related to Safari's habit of lagging behind Firefox and Chrome in supporting new features of CSS, JavaScript, and DOM?)

        • It is a joke. I didn't even know there was a Twitter app. Who needs an app to a website?
          • Who needs an app to a website?

            Mostly three people:

            • Anti-script hardliners who don't want web pages to be interactive at all beyond link navigation and form submission because they believe a web browser ought to be a viewer for static documents, not an application platform. They prefer native applications that they can vet before installation.
            • Free software purists who refuse to run proprietary script, as described in the article "The JavaScript Trap" by Richard M. Stallman [gnu.org]. They prefer to use or write a free native application that talks
          • Re:New unified App (Score:4, Interesting)

            by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Saturday February 17, 2018 @01:38PM (#56142932) Homepage Journal

            The best part of the Twitter app on Mac was that it's so out of date, they never bothered implementing ads - I'm sorry, "promoted tweets" - on it. That would be one reason to use it: built-in ad blocking.

            But other than that - yeah, I don't see a point to a Twitter app. If you want an "app-like experience" just grab a Twitter tab and throw it into its own little window. Boom. Twitter app.

        • Yes. What problems have you run into when accessing https://twitter.com/ [twitter.com] from your web browser?

          All of the Twitter clients I have used have pretty good support for multiple Twitter logins. The website has zero such support (unless I've missed something? Would be happy to be proven wrong here).

          Like many people I know, I have a professional and a personal Twitter account. I'd prefer to be able to see both feeds interleaved, and to be able to easily post to either account. On the web site you have to log out

          • by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepplesNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday February 17, 2018 @04:59PM (#56144132) Homepage Journal

            All of the Twitter clients I have used have pretty good support for multiple Twitter logins. The website has zero such support (unless I've missed something? Would be happy to be proven wrong here).

            If you use Multi-Account Containers [mozilla.org], a feature of Mozilla Firefox, any website supports multiple logins. Create a container for accounts related to your brand and another for personal use, and Firefox will track your Twitter cookies separately for tabs belonging to each container. It's not interleaving, but it does let you switch between the two more easily.

            Does Safari support anything similar?

            • Not really other than private browsing - But that would work in a similar way since you could have two tabs open. with different accounts.

              I don't really like that option though, not only is there the having to switch tabs to read different streams but also one reason for having them in the same client is being able to easily share content from one account via the other instead (basically retweeting under a different account). If you start talking custom browser features you may as well just have a native c

          • by swell ( 195815 )

            "On the web site you have to log out and log back in, which really sucks compared to clients."

            Sounds like a great safety feature. It seems that many people impulsively post things that they later regret. A built-in time delay could prevent many of those incidents, possibly even protecting the reputation of a World Leader.

    • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      But why do you need an app for tweets? It's enough with a good web browser.

      • I have too many tabs open in my browser, so having a separate app makes a lot more sense. Speaking in general of all websites that have apps - be it Yelp!, Fandango, Best Buy, et al, not just Twitter or FaceBook
    • Well, Windows is a dead end road too...

  • Losing (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "We're focusing our efforts on a great Twitter experience" by losing 1000's of users

  • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Saturday February 17, 2018 @10:16AM (#56141576)

    "But wait, I use that."

    "Hey, you can't do that!"

    "What the hell?! Why?!?"

    Ah, can't you just feel the Free Love? Ain't zero-cost apps awesome?

    BRB, gonna go log into Netflix now...see if they removed my favorite movies and shows again...gotta keep this buzz going.

    • You don't own anything on your devices. You just rent it from the tech companies. Welcome to 2018.
      • You don't own anything on your devices. You just rent it from the tech companies. Welcome to 2018.

        Yup. And here's a little preview of where this is headed:

        You don't own anything. You just rent it. Welcome to 2038.

  • honestly its all about the advertisers... Is anyone who advertises on twitter objecting to this ?
    (so twitter will publish a website and mobile app's)

    This would be interesting if they link to data showing desktop vs mobile vs Web usage.

    regards

    John Jones

  • Is this guy a paid shill or just a moron? To paraphrase:

    Hello fellow Mac users! I too use a Mac, just like you. Twitter is pulling support for their app, and though that may upset you, Twitter says that using the website is better. And boy are they right! The web experience is great on any platform! You should be using it right now, instead of that stupid app.

    I know, some other Mac users are going to say that they like native apps, but they're wrong. They don't like native apps. If you really want native apps, you can buy one of these native apps! But please don't like native apps. The correct way to use Twitter is through the website. And that's great, because you can get a better Twitter experience on a cheap Chromebook instead of an expensive stupid Mac. I mean... I like Macs, just like you, fellow Mac user.

    Tell me your thoughts in the comments below!

  • Twitter confirms it.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I guess my only option is to continue not giving a shit about Twitter. Wake me up when they inevitably go out of business.

  • by Teun ( 17872 )
    One hell of a way to discourage this guy Trump.
    :)
  • The Twitter Mac app was dead a long time ago, they just kept the corpse twitching to torture users...

    It never worked right for animated images, and never even got an update that let you use the new higher tweet character limit - presumably because the entire app would have had to be re-written from the ground up.

    Luckily there are a few third party Mac apps that fall under the grandfathered "unlimited oAuth tokens" for Twitter API use, so any number of customers can use them... Twitter may just be giving up

  • I never knew they had a Mac app. I've been using FIrefox for Twitter access. I can't see any reason to have an app when the browser does everything I need. I had to take the twitter app off my Android phone because it basically wanted to take over my phone. Damn sure I don't want anything like that on my Mac. Hell no.

  • Shows how much the thing meant to me.... As far as I'm concerned, Twitter is based on such a simple premise, it's the last thing I want to install a whole application to do. It's bad enough I keep getting spam emails from them to "remind me" about other content people tweeted that I might want to sign in and read.

  • They probably decided Apple were Russians or Nazis or racists or something, and banned them from Twitter in a huff. They get that way sometimes.

  • Why would you need that app on a computer when the website accessible via any browser is a fully functional option?
  • Doesn't MacOS depend on the twitter app in order to do it's twitter integration?

    I could be wrong. I've always thought providing direct OS support for ephimeral services was silly, so I've always ignored that functionality anyway.

    But for all the people that actually do care about this functionality, won't they get screwed over by this?

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