Twitter raises API walls, seems intent on starving out traditional apps

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Twitter has announced the upcoming version 1.1 of their API, and provided yet more "direction" to Twitter app developers. First, it's important to remember that the sky isn't falling. The Twitter apps you use today will still be usable tomorrow. The community you enjoy right now will still be with you for the foreseeable future. Yet reading the pronouncements, it's impossible not to realize that Twitter's plans for those apps and that community will change them, soon, and forever.

Last time Twitter foreshadowed changes to their policy, I made the analogy that it was like someone who's lover worked to put them through college, who was then dumped the day after graduation. With today's changes, Twitter seems to have gone from unappreciative to all out offensive. To put it in medieval terms, they've surrounded developers, walled them up, and seem intent on starving out traditional Twitter apps out.

That's feeling I get reading Twitter's new Changes coming in Version 1.1 of the Twitter API post on dev.twitter.com. Here's what will soon be required:

All API calls will have to be authenticated. That's not a bad thing; it would cut down scraping and other potentially onerous activity.Rate limits on a per-endpoint basis. Right now Twitter limits API calls to 350 per hour, regardless of whether you're calling one API or all of them. Now each API will have its own rate-limit. If you call many, maybe it'll work out better for you. If you call only one, you'll be in trouble.

But they save the kicker for last:

Changes to developer rules of the road. This is where Twitter once again urges Twitter app developers to no longer develop Twitter apps by increasing control of how these apps need to display data, and increasing the cap on how much data they can show. It essentially means no third party Twitter app could possibly grow big enough to support a significant portion of Twitter's still-growing user base.

The image of API calls standing in bread lines, desperate for their meager rations comes to mind, as does the image of people swallowing their favorite Twitter apps in a vain attempt to sneak them across the wall.

And as a longtime user of the service, it's that's how I feel when I read that they'd love to promote business tools like Dataminr and status markers like Klout, but want to marginalize Tweetbot and Twitterific. Or phrased the other way, they want to get rid of apps that are used by me, and facilitate apps that use me and my data. They want me mined and ranked, not empowered and engaged.

I understand that I, and many other early, geeky adopters, are no longer Twitter's user-base. They're mainstream now. They're filled with people who have almost no followers, follow hundreds of celebrities, and send almost not DMs. And I'm not Twitter's revenue stream. No user is. Like Google and Facebook, I'm the product they want to sell -- my metrics, my date, in aggregate -- as their revenue stream. I get that.

Yet it's still difficult to imagine that Twitter couldn't have gone about this in a different way. That they couldn't figure out a way to create and protect their own revenue streams and longterm plans without creating uncertainty for and the perception of hostility towards, the developers who were there with them from the beginning and helped them build the service they're now monetizing and positioning for the future.

Twitter uses these quadrants to say they want apps in the top and bottom left, and bottom right, but not the top right. By saying that, they're very literally saying they don't want anything that "engages consumers".

And it's difficult to imagine that a lot of people at Twitter, who love Twitter every bit as much as we geeks to, have ideas for doing just that. I hope the Powers that Be at Twitter pause, reflect, and reconsider, and then listen to those better ideas.

There has to be something other than "thou shalt make no Twitter clients before me."

Earlier today Apple apologized for, and reversed, a bone-headed, customer-hostile decision they'd made. Would that Twitter had their grace and insight.

I'd like to thank Craig Hockenberry and Gedeon Maheux and everyone at the Iconfactory for Twitterrific, and Loren Brichter of Atebits for Tweetie, and Paul Haddad and Mark Jardine of Tapbots for Tweetbot, and all the other developers who put time and money and blood into making better user experiences than Twitter themselves were capable of. It's appreciated, and I'm sure many will continue to use and enjoy your apps for absolutely as long as possible.

Apropos of nothing, you can find me on app.net @reneritchie and on Google+ +Rene Ritchie

Rene Ritchie

Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler. Follow him on Twitter @reneritchie, app.net @reneritchie, and Google+ +Rene Ritchie

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More of: Twitter, twitter api, Twitter Apps ? PreviouslyAdonit Jot Touch pressure-sensitive, Bluetooth stylus review Next up ?Instagram 3.0 introduces Photo Map and other improvements There are 8 comments. Add yours. SockRolid says: Aug 16, 2012 at 9:18 pm - 3 days ago

Re: "Yet it's still difficult to imagine that Twitter couldn't have gone about this in a different way."

Agree Rene. Twitter is big enough to do almost anything they want. "You don't like our API policies? Fine. You are free to go build your own micro-blogging empire."

I doubt Twitter is trying to hype their own app or drive people to access Twitter through browsers. I'm sure they're just acting to prevent automated "scraping" and data mining, and to help manage the load on their servers. There aren't too many ways to do that other than by capping the number of requests per hour.

Reply Dev from tipb says: Aug 16, 2012 at 10:35 pm - 3 days ago

If this was simply to prevent scraping, Twitter would not have, on multiple occasions, told people not to make clients. This is definitely to get people to use browsers or the 1st party Twitter client, where they have more control over monetizing the views.

Reply Raptor007 says: Aug 17, 2012 at 9:36 am - 3 days ago

Twitter needs to wake up and realize the tighter they make the noose they think is around their users and 3rd party developers necks, they will realize too late its really been around their own.

I can take it or leave it, Twitter is nice but hardly a must have place to visit, there will be other platforms to come along that will do what they started out doing and actually stick to it.

One other thought, if the folks at Twitter cannot write a native client to save their lives then perhaps they need to buy out one of the other client apps and make that the native app, oh wait they see it as better business to starve their better apps out of existence and try to force users into their poorly implemented native app instead. #TwitterFail #TwitterNativeAppFail

Reply floydstyle says: Aug 17, 2012 at 12:23 pm - 2 days ago

I guess using website or/and their own client only means more revenue by ads. Personally, I will just simply stop using twitter, so less time wasted hehe

Reply Raptor007 says: Aug 17, 2012 at 12:39 pm - 2 days ago

I would have to agree. Twitter can either make a better client, charge a monthly access fee (cut down on spammers), say $5 a month. I don't mind ads, but I do mind restrictions to how I access content. Its not like Twitter didn't know when they started that they had to generate a revenue stream, bending your customers over is not the best way to get that revenue though.

Reply Daspoo says: Aug 17, 2012 at 4:58 pm - 2 days ago

Absolutely. IMO, it's nothing to get crazy-passionate about, but if Twitter goes the route Rene mentions, and I no longer have the option to choose a client other than Twitter's, I'll simply stop using it ("it" being Twitter). Actions speak louder than words. When Twitter notices their user base activity start to dwindle, and/or accounts start to disappear (for us like-minded individuals), maybe that will help them "re-evaluate" their position.

Reply 9thWonder says: Aug 17, 2012 at 1:21 pm - 2 days ago

I don't see anything wrong with what they are doing. If some people don't want to make the apps fine. I can use the official one. And honestly someone else will come along to fill the void of others. It's their business I say they can do whatever they want with it. But as a users i don't really care.

Reply Ces1ne says: Aug 17, 2012 at 5:03 pm - 2 days ago

No offense & this isnt an attack on you (I know how easy people get butthurt in comments/forums, so had to point that out), but I think you're not really grasping what they/TwitterGods are actually trying to do here (in terms of us users & 3rd party devs....that IMHO have made Twitter what it is today). But honestly I cant be arsed to explain it all/have a discussion about it, so......blah blah blah.

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NAVIGON updated, adds traffic, Bing integration and FreshMaps

NAVIGON is a handy navigation app for your Windows Phone. One of the keys features (and appeal) to NAVIGON is the app's downloadable maps that reduces your dependency on a data connection while on the road. NAVIGON was recently updated to bring a trio of new features to the table.

First up is Traffic Check. Traffic Check will inform drivers of current traffic conditions with an easy to read graphic. The graphic gauge indicates traffic conditions with a green, yellow or red field based on the conditions.

Next up is Bing integration. Integrated with Bing Maps, users can now navigate to addresses they find on Bing Maps. NAVIGON will appear as an app option in Bing that will send the address to NAVIGON.  From there, NAVIGON will generate turn by turn directions from your current location to the address.  This makes finding and address and generating directions a little easier if NAVIGON is your navigator of choice.

NAVIGON FreshMaps is a new feature that will keep your maps more up to date. NAVIGON will provide users with the latest map available at the time of download. But for those who want to stay more current with their maps, FreshMaps will provide the latest maps every three months over a two year period. FreshMaps pulls the map updates from NAVTEQ to ensure the most accurate mapping possible. The service does come at a cost though. FreshMaps will cost you $39.99 but will be offered at a reduced price of $24.99 until August 30, 2012.

Overall, the update does bring some nice features to NAVIGON. The traffic check will help you navigate around town and the Bing integration makes building routes a lot easier. We'll say that FreshMaps is a nice feature but not for everyone.

There are two versions of NAVIGON available over on the Windows Phone Marketplace. NAVIGON USA is currently running $49.99 and has downloadable maps for all fifty States. NAVIGON Europe is currently running $99.99 and has downloadable maps for all of Europe. Unfortunately, there isn't a trial version available for either version.

You can find NAVIGON USA here and NAVIGON Europe here at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

                    

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Windows Phone tweets now "via Windows Phone"

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Location, Windows Phone 8 and Nokia’s plan to be the ultimate “where” platform

We had a chance to sit down and chat with Thom Brenner, Vice President of Location and Commerce for Nokia and Pino Bonetti who writes about location on the Nokia Conversations blog. We wanted to hear what Nokia are planning for the future with its location services, which the company has touted as its main focus and differentiator for Windows Phone.

Being number one in location and mapping is not anything new to Nokia as they have been at this game for many years, ever since they purchased NAVTEQ back in 2007 for a reported $8.1B. Their services power products from Microsoft, Yahoo, Flickr and four out of five cars on the road today use Nokia mapping technology. Nokia have announced their intention to be the “where” company, making location services the very heart of what they do.

Mapping and location are set to get a big boost from this drive, as Windows Phone users we will be pole position to see some of those fantastic innovations.

Nokia Transport

Nokia is certainly not alone in their pursuit of their goal to be number one with clearly Google being a tough competitor. Apple has also announced they will be dropping Google Maps to instead develop their own mapping and location based solution for iOS 6. Microsoft whilst using Nokia for much of their backend services also invests a huge amount in its Bing Maps platform.

All of the major technology players understand the importance of location. Location services will be delivering practical, relevant and inherently predictive applications to enrich mobile user’s lives. At present, users are rapidly ditching standard mobile phones and grabbing devices that have a rich array of sensors and connectivity. Windows Phones and other connected devices will not only allow simple mapping and routing but applications that will deliver information to you where it is relevant and at the right time e.g. Nokia's City Lens project.

Here is our conversation with Thom Brenner and Pino Benetti from Nokia..

Thom Brenner – We want to become the “where” company – we are just at the beginning of it. We believe we have everything we need become very successful in this area. With a number of key acquisitions such as NAVTEQ, we have the building blocks to succeed with that goal.

Windows Phone 8 will form a milestone for us, as it fully embeds our platform. That means our assets such as extensive coverage and unique offline engine will be deeply set into a Microsoft product. I do not think there are many companies out there that have done that before in such a partnership. In regards to becoming a Where company that forms a major win for us.

Nokia’s location capabilities now lay at the heart of Windows Phone 8. We believe this is a huge forward step for the next generation mobile OS. Windows Phone is a big priority for our smart devices colleagues and us. We think there is simply nothing comparable out there, a device that can ship in so many countries and with that quality of data. This is a big move for the platform, we have done this to enable better experiences for both consumers and developers.

Now everyone can benefit from our superior mapping technology. With features like offline maps and an inherently more bandwidth efficient online function, our bandwidth usage is 10x more efficient than Google maps for online usage.

Windows Phone 8 will deeply embed Nokia’s advanced location engine

In order to enrich the Windows Phone eco system, we also added Turn-By-Turn directions. These things help push consumer experiences, Smart Devices and more importantly Lumia devices form the spearhead of our “Where” strategy. Of course, over time more features will come to the platform as the stack matures but we are already thinking of usage scenarios way beyond just applications. Yes, we need applications but also we need better data, we need to understand what the consumer is doing, you need to sense and learn about the consumer.

A good example is Nokia Drive and the “My Commute” feature. This is just one-step to us beginning to learn about what users do out there in the real world, which will in turn lead to a more intelligent and relevant experience. This goes beyond what we regard as the initial phases of location-based services.

My Commute, which is part of Nokia Drive, is not currently available outside the US, for those unfamiliar with its features here is a little overview:

Allows one to decide which commute route you wish to take before you set off.Presents a choice of familiar routes, it will show you what it thinks will be quickest.Nokia Drive is always monitoring the traffic situation, gives you alternatives based on the routes you are taking every day. In essence using your own preferred routes, it will not     suggest routes you are not used to taking.When you are choosing a route, it will give you ETAs on each of them.The Live tile is updated one hour before your due to leave.

RB - That is great stuff but when can the rest of the world expect to get it?

Pino – We are working on extending to more countries but currently it’s in trials in the US as the traffic is easier to predict. My Commute features are really advanced and as something particularly new, we wanted to get more feedback before rolling it out to other countries. The next countries to get My Commute will be where we have live traffic information, currently those are 26 and yes, the UK is one of them!

Nokia Commute shows a glimpse of whats to come

RB – We would like to know what is going on here to enable this kind of application. This is going a little beyond just simple navigation and routing…

Thom – My Commute is a good example where we’re re-thinking how to build location services in a completely new way. In this case, we are thinking that this information matters to you before you even get to the car, before you even get up.

When it comes to traditional services like traffic, people are not interested in congestion as such.  Folks only need to look at traffic information because they have to figure out how to get to work. How bad is it today? What route can I take to get me there?  If we can make this easier then nobody would need to watch breakfast TV with live images of traffic jams of things not moving. People would rather enjoy breakfast with the family and get on with nice things rather than waste time monitoring traditional traffic information.

This is our way of thinking, it is a good example of sensing, a good example of actually changing experiences out there in the real world. It shows what we can do by attaching touch-points to the parts of the day that a consumer really cares about. By thinking about when we need a certain piece of information and delivering it simply on a live tile with a number this can change the entire experience.

To make that happen, think of all the pieces that need to fit together. To make that live tile number reliable, dependable and deliver it an hour before you leave, you might then begin to understand the level of complexity involved in this service.  For instance we do not want situations where traffic data is out of date or inaccurate, we do not want to send people the information two hours too early or two hours too late.  My Commute illustrates our thinking model and we will work on all the other applications in a very similar way to identify new ways of serving the “where” questions better.

Windows Phone Live Tiles Nokia Commute

RB: Tell us more about the Where platform

Thom: The platform is built around content, essentially you can only build a platform if you have the right content. The platform itself makes that content computable. Therefore, you can for instance ask the platform how long it takes to drive from here to Devon, a question you can only ask once you have put the content into the platform.

The key pillars of “Where” are Mapping, Positioning, Places, Directions, Guidance and Traffic. These are the central aspects of the platform. Uniquely we can have a large part of that platform embedded into smart devices. The map handling can then be local, you don’t need to have a data connection allowing positioning and of course be totally offline. You can even search for places as well as route calculation, a compressed, portable version of the Where platform."

We’re able to take a mini version of the whole platform experience and embed it into mobile devices. With Windows Phone 8 we did just that, we brought a hybrid version of the where platform (mixture of local + online data) and gave it to Microsoft during the building process and now it forms a key part of the operating system.

RB : Beyond what we see now, what new types of location will Nokia be incorporating in the future. For instance, currently we have places such as cafes and sites of interest but how are you going beyond that?

Where is it all?

Thom: We are looking at places far beyond the usual suspects.  We see places as things that matter most in a person’s life, it could be something out there on a beach or could be somewhere without an address in the middle of the forest. These are all places, we are building towards an offering that blends into everyday life. Essentially seeing those needs in a different way, we will look at places from that view. You can expect a new view on places from us in the future. Yes, cafes and normal locations are major parts of this, these will stay and also dramatically improve in the future.

You can see already, going back to My Commute, we now have two new concepts for “place”, work and home. Places you usually do not find in public databases, really these are the first set of personal places that we are actually learning from the user. This will continue as well, so if you go to the beach every Wednesday afternoon then we would like to learn that. A place might be something that matters only once a week or once a month. We will learn about you and your personal places, and perhaps some social connections between them. We can evolve and improve the experiences from that.

RB: Explain the importance of smart devices like Windows Phone running your location services.

Thom: This is hugely important for us. Sensing the world is not just sensing the things around you but also sensing what happens in the world. What are the changes in the world that are currently happening, why do streets change, traffic change and activity in places change?

In order to sense the world effectively, we need to be aware of all these changes happening around us. Having information come back to us from our smart devices out in the real world allows us to process and deliver meaningful and accurate data back to the consumer. Currently we collect 11 billion traffic probes a month, much of that comes from smart devices like Windows Phones running apps like Nokia Drive. Our platform also gets 90 million geo-coding requests per day. With navigation comes search and we are seeing in the region of one billion queries per year. All of this helps our platform learn what is happening out there in the world. This desirable feedback loop is only enabled by having more smart devices out there.

As humans, we are building large cities, but who has the information about the cities? A transport agency only has some information, a local authority knows about streets. We believe to really know more about the world we need our own sensors embedded. This allows us to detect changes that are going on around us, with traffic in particular, we do that.

Bing Venue Maps - Powered By Nokia

RB: Smart devices out there are acting as sensors to extend the abilities of your Where platform?

Thom: If you want good, real time traffic information then you can help contribute to that by joining the whole community. This only works if we can close the feedback loop. Of course, we don’t know who’s driving or to where, it’s completely anonymous information.

Our interest centres on “it’s a point moving somewhere, how fast is it moving”?  That information is then processed into a traffic model. In the future, for instance, we will know what general conditions are like on a Monday morning and on top of that traffic model we add real time incidents and things like that.

RB: For location-based apps such as drive, can we expect to get features such as automatic notifications to people when we arrive somewhere?

Thom: Yes, this is a big part of everyday life; we are working on the relation of location and communication. Sending messages when trains are late or when there is too much traffic, yes these things will be a big part of our strategy.

RB: Nokia have tied their smartphone future to Windows Phone but how will you ensure that your platform stays relevant for other smartphones, such as iOS, Android and tablets?

Thom -There is only one very simple answer, if you want to become the “where” company, you have to make efforts to achieve that, and we are.  That is all we can say right now. We are not forgetting about the rest of the world, this is part of our strategy and you will see something in the future.

RB: Currently you have five location-based apps, are we going to see some convergence?

Thom:  Absolutely, you cannot image how we would love to be three steps further but we are getting there. We have applications that are there for a certain purpose, Drive evolves at its own speed and it is as good as it is because we de-coupled it from some other things.

There are problems around activities that first need to be solved, things like usage with Transport and Augmented Reality. Keeping these apps separate for now allows us to move faster with each of those experiences. It is also helping the consumer as there is a really easy entry point for each of those experiences. If we were to put it into one application it gets slower, complex for the consumer and harder for us come back with good experiences. 

We split applications like Drive, so that it can offer things like a live tile with my commute. We’re focusing a lot on really making our set of applications work really well together, that means favourites syncing with similar data like knowing where home is and each app will be able respond in relevant ways.

RB:  Windows Phone 8 – Why are you excited about it?

Thom: I have been using Windows Phone for some time and I love it, it’s so easy to use. There are many improvements coming to the UI, even with WP 7.8. Windows Phone 8 will be a big power step up in terms of the platform. We’re happy to have our location platform embedded in there, that’s a huge step, there is nothing like that out there. Nothing compares to Windows Phone 8 when it comes to location. 

***********************

Thanks Thom and Pino for taking the time to tell us more about Nokia’s future with location. Nokia already has some impressive assets to lead in location services and it's clear they have plans to ensure they stay at the top of their game. They are going to be met with some steep competition from their rivals. But competition is healthy!

Thom believes that having this competition only helps highlight just how far ahead they are with their location offering. As Windows Phone users we’re likely to benefit early on with all the advances Nokia makes with its endeavors.

With location, it’s essential that Nokia not only provide its services to all Windows Phone users but also other platforms too. From the interview above it would seem Nokia haven’t "forgotten about the rest of the world" so we are likely going to see Android and iOS offerings too.

As always, we’d love to know your thoughts. Please let us know in the comments bellow…

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BlackBerry not hipster enough for Starbucks - Mobile Card app being discontinued August 28th

In an all-to-familiar turn of events, Starbucks has announced via email that they will be disabling the Starbucks Card Mobile app for BlackBerry after August 28. New downloads of the Starbucks app were actually discontinued back in October of 2011, but until now you could still use the app if you had it on your phone. The email Starbucks sent out to inform customers of the change instructs them to go to a Starbucks location to have their balance transferred to a plastic card before the 28th.

While there is still hope that Starbucks is planning a great app for BlackBerry 10 devices, that hope is fairly dim. Their original app never got updated past the BlackBerry Torch 9800. I'm guessing if they respond to my inquiry about why they are discontinuing support, the answer would be similar to other companies in the past that abandoned our platform: "There isn't enough of a user base to justify the time and expense of maintaining an app for the BlackBerry platform." Of course, if your application only supports devices that are several years old, and not the newest devices or OS', the user base you are referring to isn't accurate. I'm sure more than a few of the almost 80 million people that choose BlackBerry would love to use the Starbucks app. Hopefully we'll be seeing a new app from Starbucks once BlackBerry 10 hits.

Thanks to everyone that sent this in! 

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Twitter changing how third-party apps use its services. How will it impact Windows Phone?

Twitter has announced some sweeping changes to their all-important application programming interface or just API. This API is essential plumbing to allow application developers access to the “fire hose” of data from twitter. It has been no secret that Twitter wish to tighten their grip ever more over whom can access their system. With their latest set of guidelines, they show they mean business.

As Windows Phone users, we are literally spoilt for choice when it comes to third party twitter apps, with the likes of Rowi, Carbon, gl??k!, Mehdoh and Birdsong (to name drop a few). The new API could mean real headaches for those trying to differentiate with their Twitter client...

First up is that authentication will be required by all endpoints, in the case of Windows Phone, that means twitter clients or the built in twitter functionality. Currently some public data is available to endpoints, the new API will do away with that loophole. Nothing big here, it just means Twitter will have a better idea of who’s accessing what.

The second change will be that Twitter will enable something called Per-endpoint rate limiting. Essentially this looks to give Twitter more control over how much of the Twitter data can be sucked down at a time. Some applications might want more than the current 350 calls per hour and opt for the much higher 720 calls per hour. For the average Twitter app, those calls will be knocked right down to 60 calls per hour, per endpoint (or rather "...you can send 60 Tweets, look at 60 user profiles, and refresh 60 times in an hour").

The big changes really revolve around what Twitter calls the 'Developer Rules of the Road':

New display requirements  – With this Twitter will effectively be locking down how their data is displayed on ANY client.  Standardising the format might seem innocuous enough but it could spell the end to varied third party twitter apps. If they feel you have deviated too far from their path, they will revoke the application key. We certainly do not want to see a situation where all Twitter clients look and act the same. We’re sure devs don’t either.Pre-installed mobile applications will need to be Twitter “certified” - That means any twitter clients that come built into mobiles, from the native Twitter functionality of Windows Phone to the deep integration into Android and iOS. That will mean now working with Twitter closely to get approval. We suspect that is exactly the relationship Twitter have had with Microsoft for some time. The two had a few issues in the past with Twitter access. Some of that friction was likely down to it being built into Windows Phone. Our take is that Twitter is likely looking to get paid by the companies that are directly profiting from their service.Developers have to work with Twitter directly if they need a large amount of user tokens - Popular Twitter apps that are using over 100,000 tokens will need to work with Twitter from now on. Current applications with around that amount of users/tokens have a further 200% of growing space before they need to act. Once they reach that, it’s time to go speak with Twitter. Reasons could vary for this, ensuring good service quality by checking the most popular apps do not pull too much data. Perhaps Twitter wants to see if they can charge for access for the popular apps?

More control for Twitter is on the cards here, we think this is still the tip of the iceberg. Whilst not that drastic, these new rules give Twitter greater power to approve or disprove apps that use their system. With that could come some complications for developers, less differentiation and in some cases direct oversight from Twitter.

If you’re a developer, we’d love to know what you think of these changes. Even if your not a developer we’d love to hear your thoughts. 

Source: Twitter

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