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Tweetbot officially comes to Mac for $19.99; reignites Twitter API debate

Tweetbot officially comes to Mac for $19.99; reignites Twitter API debate

By KS Sandhya Iyer | Updated: 19 October 2012 12:52 IST

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Tweetbot for Mac, a third-party Twitter client, is finally here. The app, that went through public and private alpha and beta testing, is now available for download from the Mac App Store for $19.99.

The app already exists on iPhone and iPad, as two different apps priced at $2.99 each. Both apps are immensely popular amongst users of the platform. The app has been appreciated and received well for its set of features and design.

Tweetbot for Twitter on Mac inherits much of the features as its iOS client including the aesthetic appeal with additional support for the Retina MacBook Pro. The Mac app supports the same gestures as iPhone and iPad versions, which is great news for existing users. The app comes with other standard features like filtering options, which allow you to mute users, hashtags and keywords, inline viewing of pictures and videos, conversation view and more.

Tweetbot for iPhone/ iPad users can pick up right where they left with iCloud syncing of the last read tweets across iPhone, iPad and Mac.

Tweetbot 1.0 for Mac supports notifications via Mountain Lion's Notification Center, with its own custom icon. The notifications support mentions, new followers, Direct Messages, retweets and also favourites. Further, the app also supports offline reading services like Pocket, Instapaper, Readability along with CloudApp and Droplr as well.

The decision to price the app at $19.99 has attracted some criticism, though overall the app has been very well received (345 out of 364 users gave it 5 stars at the time of writing this story). The developers tried to justify the price via the company blog:

Because of Twitter's recent enforcement of token limits, we only have a limited number of tokens available for Tweetbot for Mac. These tokens dictate how many users Tweetbot for Mac can have. The app's limit is separate from, but much smaller than, the limit for Tweetbot for iOS. Once we use up the tokens granted to us by Twitter, we will no longer be able to sell the app to new users. Tapbots will continue to support Tweetbot for Mac for existing customers at that time.

The good thing is that the number of Mac tokens available to Tweetbot are independent of the tokens available for Tweetbot for iOS users. That said, if the number of tokens available for Tweetbot on Mac are used up, Tapbots will discontinue selling the app. So if you're thinking that $20 is not that steep a price to pay for a good quality app like Tweetbot for your desktop, you may want to buy it soon.

To expand the number of tokens available Twitter explains that it reviews requests on a case-by-case basis. An estimated 100,000 individual user tokens will be made available to Tweetbot based on Twitter's API guideline Version 1.1. Existing third-party Twitter apps will be offered an additional 200 percent of the app's current user token, but since Tweetbot for Mac has just launched with no current user base, this unfortunately doesn't apply. (Also see: Twitter's move to curb third-party clients may prove self-destructive)

Tweetbot for Twitter (Mac OS X, $19.99)
Tweetbot for Twitter (iPhone/iPod touch, $2.99)
Tweetbot for Twitter (iPad, $2.99)

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