I had a corpse on my phone, and I kept checking it out. Since January 12th my favorite iOS app Twitter has been locked into stasis, frozen in an error telling me “There was an authentication problem with Twitter,” wow, was there at all. Without any notice, Twitter revoked the mainline access credentials for Tweetbot and every other third-party client not operated by Twitter itself.
Unlike many decisions made during the “vox populi” roman cosplay era on Twitter, there was never a poll on the subject. Elon Musk never showed up in a deep thread with Kevin Sorbo and his Spartan avatar burner account to say, “Yikes, third-party apps have gotta go.” Instead, it took Twitter several days to reach out to its users or business partners and acknowledge that the move was deliberate, in the end. release An official “Your Fault” style tweet understandably explains that “Twitter enforces legacy API rules”.
The whole time, I kept reopening that dead app on my phone, scrolling through pure muscle memory
The whole time, I kept reopening this dead app on my phone, browsing on pure muscle memory for the same error that pops up on the last post my timeline saw: Lord of the rings GIF of King Théoden quipped, “You have no power here.” This app has been one of my primary ways to access Twitter for over a decade, so it used to make me feel powerless. But this repeated ghost scroll seemed like a new low.
“You are definitely not alone,” Paul Haddad reassured me, and I believed him because he co-created Tweetbot. “I know a lot of people who had to delete it just to prevent that from happening.”
This pure interface rictus had no other real way out. Yes, if I backtrack a bit, I can use Juke Tweetbot’s error protocols enough to scroll through any slice of the timeline loaded into memory just before the end. But the only bonus was getting the experience of reading Tweetbot’s well-polished tweets to endlessly review posts from January 12th. The sweet tactile jolt I got from favoring a mutual declaration on January 12th that they were “built like a worm” was a lie. It is not registered. Without any ability to re-authenticate with Twitter, the Tweetbot interface was all that was left.
This entire context, from Tweetbot’s error message to its short-term memory of cached content, is designed to be ephemeral, just something you see when the signal goes out or if Twitter itself crashes.
“We definitely had to deal with outages in the past, the whole failed whale era,” Haddad said. “We definitely didn’t think this was how it would end up.”
Nobody designs a product on the fly about how its application will behave in the absence of an unexpected outcome.
Nobody designs a product on the fly about how its application will behave in the absence of an unexpected outcome
Haddad’s Tapbots handled all of this as gracefully as one would expect anyone to handle a direct attack on their livelihood. Ten days or so after pulling the plug on the app, the team released a powerful epitaph for their creation, without fail saying that they “invested over 10 years building Tweetbot for Twitter and it closed in the blink of an eye.” The Tapbots tribute joined the sentiments of its heartbroken superusers, who would happily pay a few bucks a year to get access to her handcrafted icons and expertly rounded corners. (“One of the best apps I’ve ever used,” hailed Apple blogger John Gruber.) Like many other Twitter members disillusioned with the company’s mercurial politics and ego-driven roadmap, Tapbots mopped up the wreckage and opted to migrate. With a dark but dignified passage, Tapbots announced a new focus for the company: Ivory, a fledgling Mastodon client that builds on everything it learned creating Tweetbot plus much of its code.
As a longtime Mastodon account holder who still feels like a newbie to the platform, I’m glad to see Tapbots bring their talents to the scattered, loosely joined islands of the Fediverse. The experience of joining a Mastodon really depends on the server you start on — the particular people you associate with Twitter are already parted ways, if they’re here at all. A tool like Fedifinder or Debirdify will produce a neat data payload that you can use to follow individuals en masse where they land, but they may also be spread across twenty servers. Part of the double helix of Twitter horror and intrigue was that everyone swam in the same pool — you, your weird friends, the Russian purges, and Shaq. In Mastodon, each server has its own culture, and you can only join one server per account, so there is a feeling that everyone is playing in a slightly different room. When installing Ivory for the first time, I had some hope that a little familiarity might go a long way.
Having used Ivory now for several months, I can say that while Mastodon doesn’t look much like Twitter, Ivory at least feels like Tweetbot, and that was enough to give the whole experience a comforting sheen that in turn helped me embrace the mastodon. Haddad asked if this was intended. He told me: “That was one of our goals to make it as easy and transparent as possible. Twitter and Mastodon are obviously two different things, but honestly, I love Twitter.” He paused to correct himself. “Ok I’m I love Twitter.”
Twitter and Mastodon are obviously two different things, but honestly, I love Twitter…well, me I love Twitter.”
This was not just a comment on regime change. Haddad talked about the way Twitter used to do that Feelespecially in the days of pre-algorithmic compendium. “A simple social network where people post and reply to each other. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it then, I don’t think there is anything wrong with it now, and if we can offer that experience, I’m more than happy to do so,” he said. . Focusing on classic Twitter flavor requires some sacrifices at this early stage. Ivory doesn’t let you fiddle too much with the eccentric nuances of a mastodon, for example; You can’t use it to explore servers you haven’t joined or browse social graphs of interesting people in other communities. The highlight that Ivory has to offer is a simple timeline of accounts you’ve followed specifically. You can also browse the local server you’ve joined or branch out to a wider, messier Federated feed, all with the same smooth scrolling action as Tweetbot because (as Haddad emphasized) it’s literally the same scroll processing function. Ivory, at least in this infant form, puts you at ease by reducing the space of multi-dimensional possibility of the Mastodon to a simple two-dimensional feeding that fits into a well-established frame.
Tapbots make what I would call “customary software,” which is a disingenuous phrase to throw around because they can be free or elaborate depending on the context. But the point is, simply throwing every possible functionality of a Twitter or Mastodon at the user’s feet like a basket of Legos doesn’t actually help them use it successfully. “One thing I don’t like doing, and it’s hard to get away from, is having a million settings in the app,” Haddad said, confidently accepting the program’s label. “We try very hard to keep the number of settings low to reduce it to only the really important things, and then make things work as automatically as possible.”
This flair-driven type of dance can help perfect the catwalk as it evolves
Tweetbot stood out by getting opinions on the best way to respond to tweets (with a friendly but deliberate swipe) or boost them (tapping once to expose likes and retweets, and again subtly prompts you to reconsider). These learned behaviors aren’t necessarily obvious at first, even if they eventually become second nature enough to introduce the kind of compulsion that inspired this piece — and Tweetbot’s orientation toward multitouch virtuosos may have left some growth on the table. Tapbots have also made some constant tweaks to the Twitter experience. You had to swipe right on a tweet to see its stats, for example, exactly the kind of resolution you’ll never see in an official Twitter app optimized for an infinite amount of engagement. Deployed skillfully, this kind of flair-driven groundbreaking dance can help accentuate the ideal of the platform as it evolves, benefiting the primordial yet grating Mastodon soup.
When I spoke to a mourner, I didn’t feel like I was talking to someone who was still grieving. He and the Tapbots have accepted the accidental destruction of a decade’s work and saved the best parts for a new chapter for the company.
“Now that we’re out, it’s interesting not to worry about things on Twitter anymore,” Haddad said. “I just feel comfortable seeing what this latest nonsense is.”
I asked Haddad if he was still using Tweetbot for him Phone, and if so, what tweets were frozen after the extinction event.
“Let me see,” he said, patting a little, frowning at his screen. “Maybe you deleted it,” he murmured gently. swipe more. “No, I didn’t delete it… Oh.”
“Last tweet, believe it or not… Elon Musk.” Send me a screenshot.
“Instagram makes people depressed and Twitter makes people angry,” Musk said contemplation, minutes before Haddad shared his own about Tweetbot remaining silent for the last time. Twitter’s chief of staff ended his tweet with the question, “Which one is better?”
For Tapbots, it’s clearly a Mastodon, as it can once again build its product its way — and remind Elon Musk: You have no power here.