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Twitter buys Tweetie

Stampyhead

Stampyhead

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Sep 3, 2004
2,294
30
London, UK
I expected to see this on the front page, or at least somewhere in the iPhone section, as it seems like pretty big news. So if it has been posted already and I missed it somehow, my apologies.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds..._fuel_to_developer_fires.html?cnn=yes&hpt=Mid

Just two days after comments by Twitter investor Fred Wilson made third-party Twitter developers nervous about what the company might do, those fears have become reality: The company announced Friday that it has acquired Atebits, maker of Tweetie, one of the top Twitter apps for the iPhone (AAPL). According to a post by co-founder and CEO Evan Williams on the Twitter blog, the app will be renamed Twitter for iPhone and will now be free (previously, the pro version of Tweetie cost $2.99 to download). Developer Loren Brichter said on his blog that he is joining Twitter’s mobile team and will be developing Tweetie for the iPad.
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I wonder why they decided to do this if they won't be charging for it?? I've used the iPad version and wasn't impressed. I like Twitterrific better. But if I'm on my iMac I just use the website as it easier (for me).
 
Twitter have said that they want to have an official app in the App Store.

I guess they looked at building one from scratch and decided to purchase Tweetie instead. They get a running start - they have all the Tweetie source code - plus the expertise - they have the developer of Tweetie as an employee.

Tweetie 2 is often regarded as the best iPhone Twitter client but this is obviously very subjective.

Some of the other Twitter clients reinvent the wheel a bit when it comes to the UI - I think Twitter would rather back an app that sticks to some of the UI conventions set out by Apple.

The developer - Atebits - have said in their blog that they will be taking the source code of Tweetie 2 and using it to work on a new iPhone Twitter client - probably called "Twitter". And I'm sure the app will be improved further in the process.

Blog post: http://news.atebits.com/post/509476371/an-amazing-ride
 
macfan881 said:
Really hope it goes free soon like this week perhaps....
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Well, the point of hiring him is to work on a new app...think of iPhone Twitter as Tweetie 3, really.

THAT's what they've said will be free and you won't be seeing that for quite some time.

But it's an interesting question...now that they own it, will Twitter make Tweetie 2 free? They haven't said, but it would get more people to use it which would mean more people who would automatically start using their official app when it comes out.

Dunno, I could see it going either way.
 
I hope this doesn't end up like Birdfeed. Brizzly bought them recently, made the app free, and completely stripped it of all its features.
 
fishkorp said:
And OP, there are multiple threads on this topic in the App Store forum that were posted over the weekend.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/893561/
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Oops... Yeah, I figured someone must have mentioned it, but I didn't see anything after a brief search.
I feel a bit sorry for the developers of all the other iPhone Twitter clients, but this is something that had to happen eventually.
 
Yeah! I can't wait to see what Twitter does with their own iPhone app. Plus Tweetie is basically the leader in Twitter iPhone applications. I can't wait to see what comes up next with this acquisition. :apple:
 
naturally i had just bought tweetie 2 less than a week before i heard this announcement. Oh well I guess.
 
The new Tweetie app will be called Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for iPad as stated by Twitter.


I bet they're aiming for a summer release with the new iPhone.
 
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