Tweetbot for Mac pulled from app store after hitting Twitter's user limit

A leading third-party Twitter app has been pulled from the Mac App store after hitting a cap imposed by the social network on the number of users it can have.

Tweetbot for Mac, which launched on the Mac App Store in October 2012, is the latest application to fall foul of Twitter’s ongoing rule limiting new clients to a total of 100,000 users, ever.

But a day later, Tapbots, the app’s developer announced that it would be reviving Tweetbot for Mac after working with Twitter:

The rule dates back to August 2012, when Twitter announced that any new app which was mainly used to access the users’ timeline would need explicit permission to have more than 100,000 users. That announcement was also the source of Twitter’s infamous “quadrant” guidance, when the company attempted to explain which uses of its application programming interface (API) were acceptable, and which weren’t.

The post was widely seen as an attempt to kill off third-party Twitter clients, and eventually force users onto the official Twitter app. Twitter cannot display adverts on third-party apps, and it has no control over which of its new features get rolled out when.

Although the company grandfathered in permission for already existing apps to have more than that user count – and grow until they have at most twice the users they had in August 2012 – Tweetbot for Mac was one of the first high-profile apps to launch after the limit was put in place.

The bulk of development had occurred before the app was released, leaving Tapbots with an uncomfortable choice: how best to release an app with a lifetime maximum of 100,000 users? In the end, the company decided to increase the price of the app far beyond the norm for Twitter apps, charging users $19.99 – a hard sell, especially given Twitter’s own app for Macs is free.

But two and a half years later, the choice has seemingly been proved right. Despite a constrained usersbase, and ongoing limitations from Twitter in terms of what third-party clients can access through the API, the app is viewed fondly by many users. It’s even managed to be more actively maintained than the official Twitter app over the same period.

Tweetbot’s developer, Tapbots, did not return a request for comment. The company makes one other Mac app, CalcBot, as well as a number of iOS apps.

Updated 27 January to include Tapbot’s tweet.