Tweetbot is (mostly) working again
However, the client is not back online because of something Twitter did. Tweetbot co-creator Paul Haddad narrates The edge that they still haven’t heard from Twitter, so they “decided to start using new API keys and see if that fixes the problem.” This allows Tweetbot to temporarily avoid any service interruptions, even if it is put into a semi-working state.
As indicated by iOS developers Mysk, Tweetbot is probably in trouble because it uses different API keys that place significantly lower limits on its activity. “Twitter API restricts new apps to low limits,” explains Mysk. “All Tweetbot users now share a limit of 300 posts per 15 minutes.”
Things started to break down last Thursday when users found themselves unable to access third-party Twitter apps, including Tweetbot, Twitterific, and the Android version of Fenix. Despite widespread confusion, Twitter and CEO Elon Musk have not yet publicly acknowledged the outage, nor have they contacted developers to let them know what’s going on. Meanwhile, Twitterific and Fenix on Android are still suspended.
According to a report of The information, Twitter may have purposely disabled third-party apps. Internal messages reviewed by the outlet reveal a senior software engineer saying the glitch is “intentional”. Another post reportedly says Twitter is getting ready to issue statements to developers affected by the outage, though it’s unclear when that will be ready.