Tapbots recently released Tweetbot for Mac on the App Store and, to the chagrin of some people, is charging $20 for it. I, personally, think that it is worth it, but Tweetbot still makes me sad.
The sadness is because Tweetbot is what Twitter could be, or what Twitter could have, and what Twitter DID have when it purchased Tweetie all that time ago. Tweetbot makes me sad because there is a definite possibility that Twitter will just turn its back completely on 3rd party clients (even more than it has) and shut them out … and killing the best Twitter experiences available.
Tweetbot makes me sad because they care more about Twitter and the mobile and desktop experience than Twitter does. While Twitter for Mac lies as a waste, Tweetbot releases a truly excellent client for the Mac and we all wait for the final shoe to drop and for it to be discontinued.
Tweetbot for Mac is truly an excellent piece of software and the best Twitter client available on both OS X and iOS, and that’s the problem … Twitter should be the one with the best client, but they just don’t seem to care.
2 replies on “Why Tweetbot Makes Me Sad”
I agree with everything said.
It sucks that people blame Tapbots for the price when Twitter are the ones that have forced unsustainable business models on developers. Much like when printers wouldn’t work with Vista, the printer manufacturers didn’t make the drivers but MS got blamed.
I suppose we hold out hope (in ever decreasing amounts) that Twitter will wake up.
I agree. I’m hoping they’ll wake up, but it seems that they keep trying to lash out and find that one way to make a ton of money. Facebook is hitting similar issues.