Twitter Bans Third-Party Clients Like Tweetbot, Twitterrific

After a full week of questions, Engadget was the first to notice that Twitter changed’s developed agreement:

The “restrictions” section of Twitter’s developer agreement was updated Thursday with a clause banning “use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.” The addition is the only substantive change to the 5,000-word agreement.

In plain English, that bans any other Twitter app besides the official product.

The saga started late last week when third-party clients were unable to log on to the social network. Users were greeted with error messages.

After days of confusion, the Twitter developer account sent a message on Tuesday that was, well, confusing

That didn’t exactly help the situation, and developers from third-party clients like Tweetbot openly questions what rules that the apps had broken.

But Thursday’s news officially marked the very undignified end of the road.

Like other major changes to the service under owner Elon Musk, Twitter wasn’t forthcoming for the reasoning behind the change.

But the best bet is that third-party clients don’t show ads or provide Twitter Blue subscription revenue—exactly what Musk is hoping will keep the service afloat.

Third-party clients have always been the best way to enjoy Twitter and arguably helped increased the popularity of the social network.

It’s enormously frustrating to see the great work of so many developers be flushed down the drain for reasons unknown.

So if you still want to browse your timeline, you’ll need to use the Twitter app, for better or worse.