Tag: Third party apps

Speaking of third party Mastodon clients…

Checking out phanpy.social, it looks amazing. So clean, very app like, adjustable text size and interface via browser control. It’s still in development but it looks like it’s ready for regular use if you’re looking for a visually pleasing and functional web app for Mastodon. Best used on mobile or tablet, IMO.

All the boosted posts are grouped together in a carousel, threads get highlighted with an automated count, replies have a different shade, content warning, post visibility, text description, language options, attachments, and polls are available.

Posts are shown either as the normal stack of text blocks or separated as cards depending on your browser’s zoom level, and you can launch the post composition field into a different browser window for much larger and clearer view.

It has dark mode and post detail opens up in a new sheet over the timeline in the same window. Love it!

PS: Here’s an actively updated list of clients and resources for Mastodon

The death of third party Twitter apps

On Friday, 13 January 2023, Twitter turned off access to most third party Twitter clients. People who used apps like Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and Echofon were suddenly shut out of their apps, faced with a screen that told them there’s an authentication issue. 

It’s not the first time third party apps were given the shaft by the company but this time there were no warnings, no official statements acknowledging the matter, no explanations. It’s as if millions of voices were suddenly silenced.

While there had been internal discussions about the ban, it wasn’t until almost a week later that there was an official word and even then there was no public communication that third party apps are no longer allowed. Engadget found out by diving into Twitter’s developer terms which were only just updated yesterday.

Twitterrific developer Craig Hockenberry was rightly incensed about the move, and his Iconfactory colleague Sean Heber wrote about having to shut down the app after 16 years. It’s absolutely clear that Twitter is no longer the same company as it was a year ago or even six months ago.

Unlike companies such as Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, or TikTok, Twitter had always been reliant on third party apps and solutions even near the beginning, which was why the 2012 API restrictions were met with massive backlash to which Twitter then relented. This time, though, no such luck.