Ben Everson
John SiracusaIf you were a Twitterrific or Tweetbot user, you should download the latest versions of those apps from the App Store and launch them. Here’s why: https://daringfireball.net/2023/03/tweetbot_and_twitterrific_face_the_cliff
In case it’s not clear from this post https://daringfireball.net/2023/03/tweetbot_and_twitterrific_face_the_cliff the reason you’re being asked to tap a button that says you don’t want a refund on the remainder of your Twitterrific or Tweetbot subscription is that Apple WILL send you a refund if you don’t do this. You must explicitly opt out of receiving a refund.
joshhunt@siracusa The one thing I haven't understood is whether this a standard process or a once-off thing Apple is doing? (similar to Marco's content blocker app)
Marcus Krüger@siracusa Is this just another stupidity of the AppStore? How does Apple become aware that an app subscription does not deliver anymore? Were there examples in the past where something like this happened? Where Apple paid back money without any actions on the user‘s part?
Kevin Glowacz@siracusa I figured it had to be something like that since both apps were doing it in a very similar way.
I’m very curious to hear more about how their discussions with apple went that lead to them adding the feature and about the APIs involved in indicating no refund needed.
Is this a standard api, or something first built just for this situation?
David Hsu@siracusa it’s been awhile since I read Daring Fireball but I enjoyed the bracing clarity about the “chickenshit” “Phony Stark” and the noble call-out to independent developers doing their best in an impossible situation.
Kyle Bradbury@siracusa I didn’t realize how far back the refund went - my sub expired at the beginning of February and I was still set to receive a partial refund.
Carlos Moffat
𝙇𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙮 ✅
Andrew
This is Hell@siracusa This is a great idea. Although this financial issue is being created by Apple’s rules and could be solved by them given how extraordinary this situation is. I’m surprised nobody seems to be asking Apple to forego those funds.
Nick Bax@carlosmoffat @siracusa Yeah. Or better yet make Apple give the refund then demand an equal amount of free advertising from Twitter.
Phil Robb@siracusa great PSA. Thanks.
Bruno Scheele@siracusa That really wasn’t clear from _any_ of the writing on this. Thanks for the heads up.
Chris
Kenny Sabarese@siracusa How many months/years subscription are included in the automatic refund? That’s not been clear.
Bill Vinson@siracusa I'm still not clear on the why. I can't recall another case where Apple gave universal refunds like this so they're exacerbating an already bad situation and should be shamed for not taking an active role to help resolve it. This is their developer ecosystem after all…
Andrew Laurence@siracusa thank you, it was not clear.
@siracusa it’s also not clear WHY Apple will do so, or an App Store rule that addresses this case.
theJingster@siracusa I haven’t seen a definitive answer anywhere yet but is this how th App Store works when…a developer pulls a subscription app? (But the app isn’t pulled from the store). I assumed, at first, that Tapbots was choosing that default as a good will gesture for customers
Zorin =^o.o^=@siracusa I'm lucky my last Tweetbot subscription expired before Twitter shut down the API and I didn't renew it because I was already beta-testing Ivory.
But if I had months left on the subscription I would absolutely decline the refund! I feel bad for Paul and Mark having to deal with this.
sayitintexan@siracusa Thanks for this. I had no idea. I deleted the app weeks ago. Just redownloaded so I could decline the refund.
Patrick Holzman@siracusa Wait, so Apple is initiating this? I thought the devs had done this on their own. It had struck me as being a little too deep into "doing right by the customer," like I felt they were going pretty overboard, but if they're forced into it that really sucks. Unnecessary all around.
Soulfire the Wolfthis is stupid, Apple should be the ones giving refunds. Given that this is all out of anyone's control. but instead they choose to steal money from a bunch of independent creators instead :-(
Laura@siracusa @bigzaphod I’d like to do that but the ‘restore your purchases’ button is not working for me ☹️
John Gruber
randomhappening
Chad Bailey
james_tallon@siracusa Already opted out. I don’t need a few bucks back.
Josh Wold@siracusa I became an Ivory user because of this whole mess (didn’t pay before then). Hoping those teams can avoid the cliff.
Mark Madsen@siracusa I think it’s worth mentioning that you need to do this even if you let your subscription expire last month.
I let mine expire when I bought Ivory and thought I didn’t need to do this… but it still prompted me to decline.
Muhamed Brifkani
Jeffery Battersby@siracusa thanks for that heads up. Reinstalled and let ‘em keep the cash. Already have an Ivory sub.
Nicolas diPierro
Bernd Kilga@siracusa I cannot stress enough how important it is to do this step, even if you've been super close to the end of a subscription.
In my case there's only 3 days between the end of my Tweetbot subscription and the start of the Ivory one. Perfect I thought, that will just round to zero, right? But @tapbots would still need to refund me 21 days because it counts from the Bird cut off date.
Nothing but noble that this is opt-in. But man, subscriptions are high risk for devs.
Geoffairey@Geoffairey Yes, because your sub might be after the Twitter shut off date. In my case 21 days.
@Geoffairey sorry, I wasn't clear I think. Expired subs, before the Twitter API shutdown won't cause harm. But if it was “cancelled" but still running (as in active but no auto-renewal) it can have an impact.
Richard2001@console @siracusa @tapbots Re: subscriptions as high-risk, maybe I’m missing something but isn’t this particular type of scenario extremely rare or perhaps even totally unprecedented? I can’t think of any other case that’s even remotely close to this situation, meaning a platform owner cutting off its partners no upfront warning or transition period.
charlesesmith@Richard2001 @console @siracusa @tapbots This is what I came to say. You can find single-person shops that are facing bankruptcy that still would have provided a proper sunset period. The idea of --anyone-- the scale of twitter just wordlessly cutting off an API entirely is wild. im guessing we’d have to go to the dotcom bubble to find something similar.
greg ✓✅⍻✔☑√@console thanks so much for mentioning this scenario. there is zero chance i would have re-opened the app otherwise, and tapbots was going to refund me 21 days.
(now that the app no longer shows the lovely "fireworks" custom icon, i can delete it in peace)
Alexander Johmann@console @siracusa @tapbots Extra downloaded TweetBot again to confirm that I do not want a refund for the 50 something days left in my TweetBot subscription. I loved the app and it was anyways underpriced.
It‘s a risk when building on an API of another company which can change the rules anytime. I‘m glad the folks at Tabbots, IconFactory and others did it to build a better Twitter experience. Very sad that this is lost because we of one insane man.
jc_cam
Mike Smith@console @siracusa @tapbots This…I had a bit of time left when it got cut off (turned out to be 27 days). I just canceled renewal and let it lapse and assumed I was good, deleted the app and subscribed to Ivory when it came out. Didn’t realize they’d have to refund me the 27 days so I just redownloaded and selected no refund. Glad I caught it.
Awax
Prof. Sass
Greg Seay
Rainer M Krug@siracusa done it, thought about transfer, but no - gave them happily the extra money. They deservdd we it.
Mike Ruelle@siracusa just to note it makes a difference which device you try this on. I was able to opt out on my iPhone but didn’t get the refund page on iPad which I tried first.
Ammar@siracusa I transferred my Tweetbot sub to Ivory. Does that make me evil?