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Tweed Developer Throws In the Towel

By: Jesse Mendoza, 5/18/2011 8:04 am | 24 comments

Pivotal Labs, developer of Tweed for webOS and an early favorite of many a webOS fan, has decided to halt development of Tweed after two years in the app catalog. The current version of Tweed will continue to work, but no further updates are planned, and it will soon be pulled from the app catalog all together. To soften the blow, Pivotal recommends moving on to other webOS based Twitter apps like Carbon, which had its price specially reduced price of $1.99 for those looking to switch over.

In a blog posted by Pivotal’s Davis Frank, he blames Twitter’s recent policy changes regarding 3rd party developer applications, and the trouble of investing the time and effort in the newest framework being laid down for HP’s newest webOS devices including the HP TouchPad and Pre 3.

“We’ve realized that it takes a lot of resources to maintain a Twitter client to the level of features and quality that Twitter users demand,” says Davis in his recent blog post, in reference to a constantly changing Twitter API and its related services. He goes on to say, “HP is shipping new webOS devices and has a new framework to go with them so we would need to reinvest a lot of time in order to keep up with the platform.”

Pivotal Labs was the $10,000 winner in Palm’s Hot Apps contest held last year thanks to Tweed.

As much as we hate to see developers drop off due to the lack of resources resulting in needing to transition their apps to the newer Enyo framework, we’re afraid this won’t be the only major casualty to suffer this untimely fate. We are, after all, about to see the release of HP’s flagship webOS product in the HP TouchPad.

Source: Pivotal Labs Blog

About Jesse Mendoza

Certified Computer Geek by day, WOR contributor & radio DJ by night. Loves indie music, Toyoto FJ Cruisers, and running marathons. He still owns all of his Palm devices and will probably go to the grave with them. Follow him on Twitter @JesseJstreet

View all posts by Jesse Mendoza →

http://www.facebook.com/JeremiahBWhite Jeremiah White

Now this worries me. First MAJOR developer to really jump the webos ship. Could you guys ask the developer if they plan to move to another platform, or if they just can’t do the webos thing? Thanks.
http://www.pamelahazelton.com Pamela Hazelton

Not too surprising. There’s a thing in business called competition. If you’ve neither the time nor inclination to keep up, you need to move on to other things. The only unfortunate aspect is the fact they were a HotApp winner….

Aver_Joe

As usual, in a way that marches through many postings, this contributor sees competition from an exclusively corporate angle. Developers, as businesses, also have competition – for their time, and talents. If Tweed deserved to win then bless them as small business people who got some fair reward for their several year efforts…. and maybe ask yourself what the sales of apps for HP devices have been like thru these challenging times. Oh, BTW, Apple says they’ve hit the billion download mark. So don’t blow off issues with “Not too surprising.” It’s trite, it’s uninsightful, it’s big corporatist…. Bless Pivotal Labs in their future mission, and perhaps HP will deliver such a nice set of new products that webOS will pick back up some volume and be worth the dev effort.

http://www.pamelahazelton.com Pamela Hazelton

Actually, I look at everything from a *consumer* perspective, rather that as a corporatist. Every online store I build or work on is done for the “shopper”, not specifically for the client.

I certainly wasn’t trying to completely dismiss Tweed’s efforts. They are the ones who said they didn’t have the time to put in further efforts. To that, I said “Not too suprising” because there are plenty of devs realizing the amount of effort that goes into maintaining something you’ve already built.

And, competition amongst devs is akin to that of business. They all would like to create the “best” app for the job. Whether it be for pay, or simply recognition…
http://www.pamelahazelton.com Pamela Hazelton

Actually, I look at everything from a *consumer* perspective, rather that as a corporatist. Every online store I build or work on is done for the “shopper”, not specifically for the client.

I certainly wasn’t trying to completely dismiss Tweed’s efforts. They are the ones who said they didn’t have the time to put in further efforts. To that, I said “Not too suprising” because there are plenty of devs realizing the amount of effort that goes into maintaining something you’ve already built.

And, competition amongst devs is akin to that of business. They all would like to create the “best” app for the job. Whether it be for pay, or simply recognition…
http://www.pamelahazelton.com Pamela Hazelton

Actually, I look at everything from a *consumer* perspective, rather that as a corporatist. Every online store I build or work on is done for the “shopper”, not specifically for the client.

I certainly wasn’t trying to completely dismiss Tweed’s efforts. They are the ones who said they didn’t have the time to put in further efforts. To that, I said “Not too suprising” because there are plenty of devs realizing the amount of effort that goes into maintaining something you’ve already built.

And, competition amongst devs is akin to that of business. They all would like to create the “best” app for the job. Whether it be for pay, or simply recognition…

http://twitter.com/tsaunders tsaunders

Sad to see a developer go but Phnx is coming along nicely.
Matt_99_hey

dont let the door hit you on the way out…
Alex H.

Phnx all the way… Really cool twitter app. Looks great and feels great. It doesn’t feel like the default webos buttons and stuff. Its pretty innovative
Alex H.

Phnx all the way… Really cool twitter app. Looks great and feels great. It doesn’t feel like the default webos buttons and stuff. Its pretty innovative
Alex H.

Phnx all the way… Really cool twitter app. Looks great and feels great. It doesn’t feel like the default webos buttons and stuff. Its pretty innovative
Alex H.

Phnx all the way… Really cool twitter app. Looks great and feels great. It doesn’t feel like the default webos buttons and stuff. Its pretty innovative
PalmOn

HP needs to provide incentives to it’s developers. Otherwise, more may leave. Didn’t Microsoft provide incentives to it’s developers? And look how many apps they have now for their mobile platform. If I was running the show at HP, I’d have hired a team of webos app developers the day after I bought Palm, and flooded the app catelogue with new apps the day I re-launched webos (although, not with the Veer).
PalmOn

HP needs to provide incentives to it’s developers. Otherwise, more may leave. Didn’t Microsoft provide incentives to it’s developers? And look how many apps they have now for their mobile platform. If I was running the show at HP, I’d have hired a team of webos app developers the day after I bought Palm, and flooded the app catelogue with new apps the day I re-launched webos (although, not with the Veer).
PalmOn

HP needs to provide incentives to it’s developers. Otherwise, more may leave. Didn’t Microsoft provide incentives to it’s developers? And look how many apps they have now for their mobile platform. If I was running the show at HP, I’d have hired a team of webos app developers the day after I bought Palm, and flooded the app catelogue with new apps the day I re-launched webos (although, not with the Veer).
PalmOn

HP needs to provide incentives to it’s developers. Otherwise, more may leave. Didn’t Microsoft provide incentives to it’s developers? And look how many apps they have now for their mobile platform. If I was running the show at HP, I’d have hired a team of webos app developers the day after I bought Palm, and flooded the app catelogue with new apps the day I re-launched webos (although, not with the Veer).

http://twitter.com/tsaunders tsaunders

The did offer a free pre2 to developers.

Aver_Joe

True. But “s.m.a.l.l…” real smaaaaaaal.

PalmOn

HP needs to provide incentives to it’s developers. Otherwise, more may leave. Didn’t Microsoft provide incentives to it’s developers? And look how many apps they have now for their mobile platform. If I was running the show at HP, I’d have hired a team of webos app developers the day after I bought Palm, and flooded the app catelogue with new apps the day I re-launched webos (although, not with the Veer).
http://AToTheT.org/ Ajay

I’m not so impressed by the developers excuses.
Most importantly, existing twitter apps, especially those on platforms without an “official” app, are not facing much chagrin from twitter.
For this reason alone I deeply ask the developer to turn over the source to another dev, or better yet open source the beast. Its going to become more difficult for new twitter clients to get started, but existing get a pass.
The enyo part? Well, I really dont know what to say about that. Have they been workin on the enyo version since feb9, and decided it was too hard/non-portable, and so they decided that throwing in the towel would be more productive? I’m skeptical personally, but at the end of the day the other commenters are right, there are plenty of other twitter clients on the platform atm, so this doesnt seem a huge loss. Heck, maybe all the competition is the real reason they’re leaving, as mentioned by another commenter.
WOR-I think you’re making a little bit too big of a deal out of this, which isnt helpful to cmty morale. Fyi.

Aver_Joe

Seems better to be open to the realities of the world than selectively churning only the positive and hiding the negative. So good for WOR. Candor over fan boy, please. And yea, OK, it’s not that hard to take…. there are other Twit apps. Anyway, the point I get from it is to hope that the TP and P3 are just so great as to really pull in users….

http://twitter.com/TreoRock Alberto Cajigas Jr.

I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but don’t we have enough Twitter apps already? How many more do we really need? As it is now the bar has been raised really high with Carbon, Spaz, Twee and Bad kitty. Not to mention what Phynx is bringing soon. While nobody wants developers leave WebOS, I don’t think this is a bad sign for the WebOS community.
http://twitter.com/TreoRock Alberto Cajigas Jr.

I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but don’t we have enough Twitter apps already? How many more do we really need? As it is now the bar has been raised really high with Carbon, Spaz, Twee and Bad kitty. Not to mention what Phynx is bringing soon. While nobody wants developers leave WebOS, I don’t think this is a bad sign for the WebOS community.
http://www.michaeldcarney.com/ Michael D Carney

As a tweed user, and the last on my sprint plan to still have my Prē, this decision caused me to use my iOS based iPad2 for my twitter app. ;-) But seriously, as much as I still love my Prē, HP has limited time to offer me something on Sprint. Soon it will be a question of iPhone on another carrier vs. what I can do on Sprint. Right now HP

Tweed Developer Throws In the Towel

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