Confusion about Tweetie for Mac
When Tweetie came out, it was one of the most popular and hailed apps, having a distinct design and a prominent style, adopting some aspects of the iPhone counterpart. Its popularity led to increasing demand for the app to be updated when Twitter began to implement changes which left Tweetie for Mac behind in terms of features.
After months had gone by Twitter announced that it was acquiring Tweetie for iPhone and that Brichter would join the company. Twitter’s focus was to provide its own mobile apps as opposed to just mobile site, which meant Brichter had to put Tweetie for Mac aside and start paying more attention to Twitter for iPhone and later, for iPad.
Twitter has always reiterated that it’s not interested in building or developing a desktop app which is fully understandable given that they have the Twitter website. Former Twitter developer Alex Payne even said the new website was developed so that people don’t have to use desktop apps. Looking at Twitter’s new design, that comment seemed to be quite correct.
The new Twitter website may have been developed concurrently with the iPad app or at least shares the same design philosophy. Its overall approach features the same content oriented design and interface though still missing some details that are present in the iPad app such as the URL shortener, the list of top tweets, and a handful of others.
Given the effort put into developing the website, there’s little sense for Twitter to develop a desktop application that would only reduce the usage of the site. It is not in Twitter’s best interest to develop such an app.
However, demand for a desktop app is high and Brichter is still committed to developing the app despite the clear conflict of interest between his personal project and the company he works for.
On his personal Twitter account, he gave clues that development is still underway. When asked if he could say anything about it, he responded by saying, “It’s not not happening.”
John Casasanta who runs MacHeist has an especially strong interest to see Tweetie 2 for Mac out the door. His most recent Mac software bundle promo included early access to the software which helped to boost sales. Unfortunately for him, it has been months and there’s very little word about Tweetie 2 happening.
On the MacHeist forums, he’s reassuring his customers that Tweetie 2 is indeed happening and that Brichter had employed another developer on atebits’ behalf to help him work on it.
So what’s the story with Tweetie for Mac? In a statement to Macworld.com, Twitter spokesperson Carlo Penner sent in this message:
“We aren’t actively planning Tweetie for Mac 2, but we maintain the app for current users. For example, over the summer we updated the client to use OAuth and improved MagicMouse support. We also made the app available for free.”
Interesting that Penner’s statement implies that Tweetie for Mac belongs to them when in fact it still belongs to atebits, whichTwitter did not buy, contrary to popular belief. Unfortunately neither Twitter not Atebits had released a statement clarifying their positions.
Most people think Atebits had been bought but apparently Twitter never said so. It “entered an agreement with atebits to acquire Tweetie for iPhone,” according to the company statement back in April.
Loren Brichter, the man behind Atebits, is now working for Twitter but the atebits website remains online. If Twitter had completely bought atebits, the website would hav been taken down and all of the other apps he’s been working on, namely Twitter for Mac and Scribbles, would have been canned or sold off if Twitter had no interest in them.
Being a Twitter employee, Brichter’s priorities are with the company’s mobile apps. While Twitter for iPhone may have well been complete as far as the current version goes, the iPad version still needs work especially with iOS 4.2 coming up in November. When those are out of the way, only then will Brichter be able to spend more time on Tweetie for Mac.
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