My time on Twitter is usually pretty sporadic more often than not. There are days where I have an app open all the time, but, more often than not, it's something I'll check in on only every so often. It's not anything against Twitter itself. The service is fine. But there's a lot of noise and I just try to limit my time on social media in general.
That's probably one of the reasons why I'd be a perfect candidate for Twitter's stock app. But I've watched as others have complained about their timeline for one reason or another. Ads, tweets you "might have missed", and other changes that haven't gone over all that well with folks who regularly use Twitter's stock offerings.
I'm happy that I haven't run into any of those issues because I'm primarily relied on third-party apps.
Of course, third-party apps aren't always the best possible experience in some areas. Twitter rolls out new features that are actually worthwhile, like polls and threaded conversations, and some third-party offerings are slow to adopt, if they do at all. But that's a small price to pay in my opinion.
I've been using Tweetbot for so long it just feels like the stock experience for me. I have also been using Twitterrific as well, which is another great third-party offering. On Android it's been Flamingo keeping me away from the stock app. Or at least it was, until it died back in April due to Twitter's ridiculous token system.
Twitter has been working towards this week's API changes for quite some time. Since 2011, in fact. The company has been making decisions to limit the reach of third-party apps, from the aforementioned token system that made sure their user count was limited. To these API changes that remove or severely reduce the usefulness of features in those apps.
All in an effort to make sure that Twitter's "best experience" is in the apps it develops directly. Which, to be fair, isn't a bad thing by itself. Twitter has every right to develop its first-party efforts ahead of third-party options. But that doesn't make it any less frustrating.
Even with my intermittent usage of Twitter I've already run into the changes and I'm not a fan. Just getting rid of the streaming feature is frustrating on its own. But I don't think I'm going to be making the jump to Twitter's stock offerings any time soon. Not as a way to "stick it to them" or anything. Just because I'm still just so accustomed to Tweetbot and Twitterrific that I still don't see a reason to switch.
Though, I have considered downloading the stock Twitter app to get notifications back, but I'll take action on them with one of those third-party apps.
Where do you stand on the Twitter situation these days? Are you a fan of the stock app and use it on a daily basis? Or is a third-party app, whether it's on iOS or Android, your go-to option? Will you be switching to the stock app now? Let me know!
