Tweetbot 6 for iOS
Tapbots, the maker of Tweetbot, has released version 6 of the app, introducing a new subscription pricing model along with a handful of timeline and design updates.
The subscription costs $0.99 per month or $5.99 annually. Many of the features previously available as part of the paid app, including multiple account support, advanced filtering, and push notifications, are now subscription-only features. Tapbots says that subscribers will also benefit from future updates as Twitter expands its third-party APIs and ensure Tweetbot’s continued development.
$6/year seems reasonable, though it’s not clear whether the Mac version will eventually require an additional subscription. It doesn’t replace the old app, so nothing is taken away from those who have already paid for version 5.
The update adds support for Twitter’s V2 API, adding interface options for polls and cards for the first time, and it tweaks the timeline view and adds support for more tweet data. There are new “@” and “#” buttons when composing a tweet, plus there are new app icon options and more UI themes.
Not sure if its a new App Store rule, or just whichever reviewer we got, but they requested that we remove Tweetbot 5 from sale within 30 days of Tweetbot 6 going live.
And by request I mean wouldn’t approve until we agreed.
This is weird, though. Tapbots is trying to do the right thing by letting people keep using the old app, but Apple won’t let them fix any bugs that crop up?
The “value” provided by Apple. The new Tweetbot doesn’t show up in the results. I scrolled multiple screens and nowhere to be found.
Previously:
Update (2021-01-27): Paul Haddad:
No Swift, No 3rd party code. I’m a dinosaur and proud of it. I’m also lazy and have no desire to rewrite a ton of perfectly fine working code.
Apple should have a separate “unlisted” state that does not allow new purchases or it to show up in search results but still:
- Has an app page with the URL working
- Allows updates to be downloaded
Every now and then I put Hype 3 back up for sale to let folks still on that version get updates in case they missed it.
Some v3 versions have a crash-on-launch with 10.15+ and we keep getting emails about it. It wouldn’t be a problem if they could get the update normally.
The subscription “backlash” hasn’t been anywhere near as bad as I thought it’d be. Pretty sure the last time we did a paid upgrade (you know in 20 freaking 15) it was quite a bit worse.
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I think a lot of the backlash on subscriptions is the prices being so apparently high. Seems like a lot of apps go with significantly higher prices when going to subs which I can see annoying people.
I am impressed with the perf improvements. It seems considerably smoother. Thank you! Well worth the small price for a subscription to keep quality software like this up and rollin.
I have some complaints about the new link previews, though. Each time I publish on my short-form site, IFTTT automatically publishes a tweet with the content of the post and a link back to mike.rockwell.mx. This is all I want, nothing more and nothing less. But Tweetbot 6 generates a preview of the link. Sometimes.
Twitter’s V2 API is still marked as Early Access, so we matched that as there’s still bugs in their API (though we work around most of them). Once they call it 1.0 or what not, we’ll remove the tag.
Tapbots’ ability to update Tweetbot is, alas, limited by how fast Twitter builds out its new more developer-friendly API. For example, while you can now view polls in Tweetbot, you cannot vote in them; it will prompt you to open the poll in the Twitter app if you try. You cannot view who liked a tweet or retweeted a post with a comment. You cannot search tweets from more than the last seven days. All of these limitations are on Twitter’s end and have nothing to do with Tweetbot specifically.
Twitter actually lists a roadmap of their API. There’s no dates but gives a rough idea of what’s coming up. Access levels/Rate limits for some of the new stuff is not usable by us at this time, but it’s something they are looking at.
Update (2021-11-12): Paul Haddad:
I was asked in a couple very different contexts today if subscriptions have been working out. And yep they have. Barring a huge amount of churn or some unforeseen external changes we’re already at a long term sustainable level.
Update (2022-01-31): Tapbots:
It’s been exactly a year since we launched Tweetbot 6! Here are all the updates that happened to Tweetbot in the past year
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While subscriptions are a controversial topic, it has allowed us to continuously make Tweetbot a better product. We are excited to make this year’s subscription worth it to you again.
