A PYMNTS Company

Twitter Officially Kills Off All Third-Party Client Apps

 |  January 22, 2023

Twitter has updated its developer agreement to explicitly prohibit third-party app makers from creating their own clients using the company’s API.

    Get the Full Story

    Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no additional logins required.

    yesSubscribe to our daily newsletter, PYMNTS Today.

    By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.

    On Thursday, Twitter updated its developer’s agreement with a clause prohibiting app developers from making their own Twitter clients. The change comes a few days after developers began reporting their apps no longer worked.

    The “restrictions” section of Twitter’s development agreement has been expanded to help “enforce its long-standing API rules,” according to the company’s development Twitter account. It noted that, as a result, some apps might not work.

    Read more: Elon Musk’s Twitter Blocked Links To Rival Mastodon

    However, as Engadget points out, it does not align with the company’s history. Third-party apps have been central to Twitter use for most of the social media platform’s history.

    Twitterific, for example, has been a crucial part of Twitter’s history since the beginning. Twitterific had a native iOS app before Twitter did and is credited with coining the word “tweet.”

    As a result of the API restriction, developers have begun pulling their apps out of the App Store.