The Iconfactory today announced it has released a significant update to its popular third-party Twitter client Twitterrific for iPhone and iPad. The latest version of the app contains over 50 new features, improvements, and bug fixes.
Key features of Twitterrific 6:
- Auto-playing media in the timeline: Videos and GIFs silently auto-play directly in the timeline. If there is audio, it does not play unless the speaker button is tapped. This feature can be disabled if desired.
- Full images in the timeline: Tweets or direct messages with a single photo, video, or GIF will now display the media attachment at full size, aka its native aspect ratio. Tweets with more than one photo still show the attachments in a grid to help preserve screen space, but with an improved layout and face detection.
- GIPHY integration: There is a new button to easily add GIFs from GIPHY when composing a tweet or direct message.
- Quoted tweets with media: When quoting another tweet, users can now attach photos, a video, or a GIF, a feature introduced by Twitter last month. The timeline displays both the quoted tweet and the media attached.
- Improved attachment previewing: Users can now tap the small thumbnail of attached media for a larger view, and more easily add accessibility descriptions to all images, videos, and GIFs.
Twitterrific has also gained a fresh redesign, a new SF Rounded font, five new themes, three new app icon choices, a dozen new iMessage stickers, accessibility improvements like a new high contrast text option, and much more.
Twitterrific 6 is a new product with a new business model. The app is free to download, and fully functional without any purchase, but with banner ads and periodic reminders to purchase the app. Banner ads can be eliminated for either $0.99 per month, $9.99 per year, or a one-time fee of $30 via in-app purchases.
The Iconfactory says users who purchased any feature unlocks or bundles introduced in Twitterrific 5.7 or later will not see banner ads in Twitterrific 6, but they will still receive reminders to sign up for a subscription from time to time.
The ad-free, fully-featured version of Twitterrific 5 was available for a one-time fee of $4.99, so the ad-free version of Twitterrific 6 is considerably more expensive, but Twitter has enforced several limitations on third-party Twitter clients over the past few years that have made it harder for them to operate.
Twitterrific 6 is available on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.
Top Rated Comments
Switch a paid app to free with a huge subscription charge while reverting the paid version to free and introducing ads. Either the new version should include a tier that matches exactly what was previously paid for or the old paid version should be there as a separate download.
I understand developers need to get paid, but the Tweetbot dev did things a LOT better.
Lots of people paid for Tweetbot 2. When the developer wanted to release a new app, he released a NEW app. Those that bought Tweetbot 2 got to keep it. Those that wanted to buy the new Tweetbot 3 to get new features could, and it supported the developer.
With Tweetbot 4, the developer again made a new app. Those that wanted to keep Tweetbot 3 (or 2), could, and those that wanted to pay for Tweetbot 4 to support the developer, could.
Also, using Apple's "App Bundle" feature, anyone that bought Tweetbot 3 could then get a discount when buying Tweetbot 4.
THAT is a good upgrade plan. People can decide to keep their old apps. People can decide to buy new apps. Developers get paid for work. Everyone wins.
But the Twitterrific developer?
Lots of people paid for Twitterrific 5. The developer then destroys Twitterrific 5 by overwriting it with a different app, preventing people from keeping the app they paid for or even downloading it any more, invalidates ALL previous "lifetime" payments (but keeps the money), and then requests that you pay again for another "lifetime" license to get back the features (that you already paid for).
How could anyone trust him?
He could easily release Twitterrific "7" next year and charge people again for yet another "lifetime" license. He's already shown that he can't be trusted and doesn't give a crap about users.
What about those that prefer Twitterrific 5 and wanted to keep it? I paid for it, and it's gone. I can't download it, ever again. It's not available in the App Store. It's not available in my Purchased Apps. If I manage to find an old IPA of it in a backup (from before iTunes stopped working with apps), it will be so old that it might not work without an update, and updating it will just delete it and replace it with Twitterrific 6 again.
[doublepost=1560525396][/doublepost]Available... Where?
It's not listed under the developer's apps. It's not listed under my Purchased Apps.
Twitterrific 5 is gone. Reduced to atoms.
I'm just upset that they updated the app in place so I'm forced to either adopt the new model or am downgraded entirely to the current equal of the free version.
It doesn't cost them anything to keep the old version there for paid customers like me...
The reality is though... Twitter has restricted third party clients too much that all of them are somewhat of a hard sell now. So they probably figure there are some users who are deeply dedicated to the app and will pay the new fees and the customers lost aren't a big deal. Either way, it sucks and is a scummy move.