Twitter restores old, ‘better’ version of TweetDeck – but for how long?

Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox

Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Twitter has backtracked to the older, freely accessible version of its TweetDeck platform just days after launching what the company claimed to be a “new, improved version”.

“We have just launched a new, improved version of TweetDeck,” Twitter announced last week, adding that in 30 days, only users subscribed to the platform’s premium subscription service Twitter Blue would have access to the tool.

However, the social media company restored its old TweetDeck version along with free API access with no announcement of its return from either Elon Musk or Twitter’s new chief Linda Yaccarino.

TweetDeck is an app using Twitter’s API which enables users to view multiple feeds in customisable columns.

While it was launched as a free-to-use independent app in 2008, it was then acquired by Twitter, and was recently turned into a paid feature.

Several third-party apps such as “Harpy” shut down after the social media company began charging for access to its API – the system used to communicate with other services – as part of efforts to generate new revenue sources.

“Without free access to the Twitter api, Harpy will stop working on February 9th. This includes access using a (free) custom api key. Thanks for using harpy,” the app’s Twitter account noted.

TweetDeck’s new version, which also uses Twitter’s API, experienced a temporary outage last week, after Twitter decided to limit the number of tweets users can view.

Twitter users also noted that while the new version of TweetDeck came with added tools like a Tweet composer and video docking, it didn’t have an Activity Tab which is deemed an important feature.

Now, following the launch of Meta’s rival app Threads last week, many users have flagged that the old TweetDeck is back along with its legacy API working, which would allow the platform’s third-party apps to work again.

However, without any official announcement of Twitter backtracking to the old TweetDeck, it remains unclear for how long the freely accessible “better” version would remain.

Developers such as Roberto Doering, creator of the Harpy app, say Twitter is “most likely” to shut down access to their legacy API again.

“Please note that this doesn’t mean that Harpy will be maintained again, seeing as Twitter will most likely shut down access to their legacy API (again) soon and third-party apps are still against their [terms of service],” Mr Doering wrote on Harpy’s GitHub page.