After being in beta for a few months, the folks at Tapbots have released the infamous Tweetbot for Mac into the Mac App Store. While the app hasn’t changed much from its alpha and beta days in terms of user interface, many requested features like iCloud sync and an updated tweet view have been added to the application. From what I’ve seen, Tweetbot for Mac seems like a pretty outstanding Twitter client for the Mac. However, there is one major drawback that may get your attention – the price. I’ll come right out and say it: Tweetbot for Mac costs a whopping $20.
While this may seem pretty expensive for the average Twitter user, Tapbots had to make the price this high. Why? In short, because Twitter screwed Tapbots with the latest version of their developer terms. Tapbots was given a pretty low amount of access “tokens” for Tweetbot for Mac. Access tokens allow Tweetbot to interact with the Twitter API. Because of this, every time Tweetbot gains a new user, a token is used up. This only allows Tweetbot for Mac to sustain a limited amount of users, hence making it hard for Tapbots to make a profit if the app was priced low. If you’d like to view Tapbot’s full explanation, check out their blog post.
