Tapbots has launched a beta version of its Tweetbot Twitter client, but it has some heavy restrictions. Essentially, if you haven’t already authorized a Twitter account with the alpha, you can’t get into the beta.
This is due to restrictions the developers had to place on adding users in order to preserve slots under Twitter’s new user caps. Tapbots notes that you can’t delete an account or de-authorize the app from your Twitter account and then re-add it, as they’ve disabled new tokens for now. If you download the app with no accounts created, you end up at the official blog post.
That being said, here are the changes in the new Beta:
- Lots of bug fixes
- Can paste images into new tweet window again
- Can copy tweets on timeline
- Can do ‘open in new column’ (they also have keyboard shortcuts)
- Multi-column swiping and keyboard support much improved. Use tab shift/tab to move between columns.
- Better keyboard support: status detail + many other views
- Profile view: can scroll user information so can see more tweets
- Drag and drop tweets has been improved
- Gap loading works properly now
- Context click on tweet action buttons in timeline
The alpha version of Tweetbot was pulled after Twitter announced new caps on user tokens. This was done to preserve new user slots for paying customers of the eventual release version of Tweetbot. Remember, if you have any third party apps that you don’t use, visit your Twitter accounts and revoke access to them, as this will help those developers stay under their user caps. But don’t revoke Tweetbot if you want to use the beta.
Tapbots has said that it will continue to work on all versions of Tweetbot, even in the face of the newly strict API rules.
You can download the Tweetbot for Mac Beta here.
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