TweetDeck for Android retiring May 7th – do you still use it? [POLL]
Many spelled the end for TweetDeck when Twitter acquired the premier social networking client for $40 million in 2011. The application hasn’t completely died just yet, but its mobile apps have been pretty much abandoned. The only significant work we’ve seen out of TweetDeck since the deal went down were new developments for the web/Chrome app, as well as new native apps for both Windows and Mac.
With that, we can’t say we’re too surprised by today’s news that TweetDeck will be retiring its mobile apps — including TweetDeck for Android — as well as its Adobe AIR app. Specifically, the company notes that the app will not only be pulled from their respective app stores on May 7th, but they will also cease to function. One of the biggest reasons TweetDeck has to shut these apps down so soon is because the app still relies on version 1.0 of Twitter’s APIs, something Twitter will also be laying to rest in early May starting with “blackout” tests on May 5th.
No plans have been announced for new versions of TweetDeck for mobile and AIR, but we don’t expect anything more. Twitter owns the company now, and the latest changes to its API have been designed to push users away from third-party clients to the official Twitter experiences. There’s no reason for Twitter to play the favoritism game with TweetDeck in that regard, so the sunset will be permanent.
Desktop and web are still important targets for the company and its survival, so it won’t be straying from those offerings anytime soon. It’s worthy to note that it will be stripping its apps of Facebook functionality, though, so Twitter’s competitive side is shining as brightly as ever in these latest moves.
Like the situation looming with Google Reader being shut down, some folks will be scrambling to find replacement apps to do their bidding so let’s take this opportunity to help each other and try some out. We hear HootSuite for Android brings a very nice set of social networking tools regardless of which network you’re using, so give it a try and see if it’ll suffice. Feel free to suggest more in the comments section below. Oh, and don’t forget to drop a vote in the poll — we’re curious to see just how many of you even use TweetDeck anymore.
[polldaddy poll=7053441]