Twitter will implement a new and controversial API for customers in August; price scares developers

The polemic involving updating the API of Twitter for third-party customers continues.

After a protest by the developers of some of the most popular apps to access the bird's social network, this change has been postponed indefinitely. Now, Twitter has announced the new date for the introduction of the new API along with its price policy which, to say the least, only made the situation even more complicated.

The so-called Account Activity API, which replaces the current tools used by developers to connect Twitter to their apps, will be implemented from August 16. It includes access to all “common” activities on the social network, such as tweets, menes, answers, retweets, quotes, likes, direct messages, followers, blocks and silences.

In fact, the only feature that will not be present in the API is access to real-time flows, tools used by developers to capture information, such as tweets and notifications, instantly. According to Twitter, less than 1% of current developers use this feature, so it was discontinued and, because of that, Favstar (one of the first tools for monitoring likes and retweets) announced that it will end its activities with the end of the current API.

So far, (almost) everything looks good: apps can offer the same features they always have and everyone is happy, right? Good no. The big point of the controversy, now, is the price set by Twitter for new API access.

The model Premium, which offers access to up to 250 accounts (that is, nothing considering the average number of users of a good app), cost $ 2,899 monthly, and the model Enterprise goes up from the developers need to contact the network to request a quote according to their user base.

Iconfactory developer Sean Heber (developer of Twitterrific) expressed his concern on Twitter himself:

It seems that it will not be financially possible for us to hire Twitter's new Account Activity API.

Many of you have done the math and it looks like we’ll have to charge about $ 12 per user per month for you to have notifications. But do not forget that, to make a subscription system, we will have to cover the 30% charged by Apple and still earn enough to pay for food and shelter. So.

Oh, and we’ll also have to pay for our server costs. And maybe some profit would be good, too! All this to continue offering notifications push a feature that people J complained about that cost a lot in a In-App Purchase $ 5 NICA on iOS.

This is not a “wow, that's expensive” situation. It is a “this is so expensive that it will kill us” situation.

Heber also expressed that he is feeling bad for Tapbots, a competing developer that just yesterday released a new version of Tweetbot for Mac and, at the time, declared that he was working with Twitter to continue offering the same features as always for the same usual price, although possibly one or the other tool could slow down with the update.

We will have to wait, now, to see the reaction of the other developers and if Twitter keeps the decision that, in the eyes of this one who writes you, it is just another maneuver towards a very bad place for the bird's social network. We hope things will get better.

via MacRumors