Twitter had previously announced that it’s heavily used streaming api that enables your favourite Twitter client to work (eg. Twitterific, Tweetbot, etc) would cease to work this coming June.
Developers would instead be forced to use Twitter’s new “Account Activity API”, which details are extremely scarce on but effectively removes the ability to display a live stream of tweets.
… third-party Twitter clients just won’t have any practical way of offering a live-updating timeline anymore.
The full extent of the new API’s features are still largely unknown though. The final details of it are unknown to anyone outside of Twitter, including the developers were being forced to implement it by June.
Realising that June is fast approaching Twitter have, for now, delayed the deprecation of the existing API, much to the joy of third party developers. The delay is just that though; a delay, with Twitter’s official developer account tweeting again aloof details on the new system’s implementation stating:
“will provide at least 90 days notice from when the Account Activity API becomes generally available” and that “more specifics on timing [are] to come.”
Twitter recently dropped support for their Mac client after many years of neglect, now with the end to a streaming API for third party clients it leaves the company with no solution for live tweets on a Mac Desktop, forcing everyone through their mobile and heavily manipulated app feeds.
Should the new API effectively kill third-parties for good, which is something Twitter seem hell bent on doing, Twitter could literally nail its own coffin shut.
Source: Twitter postpones platform change that would cut off third-party apps – The Verge