Windows 8 Twitter client Tweetro pulled

Popular new Windows 8 Twitter client Tweetro has had to pull its app from the Windows Store. According to an email sent to users (and reported by WindowsObserver.com), the app had seen well over 200,000 downloads, but was then blocked by Twitter owing to token limitations imposed as part of what the tech industry has dubbed the social network's 'war on clients'. As Tweetro UX designer Atta Elayyan noted in the email, an official Twitter client has also yet to appear for Windows 8. On Tweetro's Twitter feed, the people running it said the company hopes to relaunch the app soon, perhaps within a few weeks – but its future is entirely in the hands of Twitter. One possible route is Tweetro relaunching as a paid app, so people will have a chance to buy it, but only in limited numbers.

Although Tweetro is the first third party Twitter client we know of effectively being forced entirely off the market due to Twitter's API changes, it's not the first to be affected by them. When Tapbots attempted to bring its popular Tweetbot client to OS X, it had to abruptly kill its open beta, for fear of the fixed number of tokens all being taken up. Later, when the app was released, it was priced at $20 – significantly higher than the iOS versions and higher than anyone was expecting. Again, Tapbots stated this was down to Twitter's token limits: "Once we use up the tokens granted to us by Twitter, we will no longer be able to sell the app to new users. Tapbots will continue to support Tweetbot for Mac for existing customers at that time. This limit and our desire to continue to support the app once we sell out is why we've priced Tweetbot for Mac a little higher than we'd like." If Tweetro returns, it will likely be to similar compromises.