Twitter iOS app creator quits unexpectedly

Twitter's iPhone and iPad app developer Loren Brichter revealed a surprise departure from the company. Friday was his last day at the company, and he signaled that he wasn't leaving for another company. He was instead "taking some time to figure out what’s next," according to his own Twitter notice.

He implied that the departure was at least somewhat amicable, expressing that he was "really proud of the way the team has grown."

The microblogging site bought atebits, Brichter's self-run company, in April of last year in order to get its own, internal apps. After porting his well-known client Tweetie 2 to become the official iPhone app, he later extended it to get iPad support and rolled out a Mac equivalent. While his support for other platforms isn't known, the design principles from his own apps have dictated much of the look and interface of the Android, BlackBerry, web, and to a lesser extent Windows Phone apps.

His involvement still sparked a row from developers that were concerned Twitter was giving itself an unfair advantage and would either prioritize its own app or discourage others. Twitter did eventually go through a partial clamp-down and try to dissuade anyone from writing an app that didn't do something significantly different from its own apps. It argued at the time that it wanted to avoid confusion, although it still lets major third-party apps like Echofon, TweetBot, and Twitterrific run unchallenged.

Brichter hasn't elaborated on whether this or anything else at Twitter prompted him to quit. [image via The Setup]

By Electronista Staff

Post tools:

TAGS :  

iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, iPhone apps, mobile phones, Twitter, Apple, Windows Phone, atebits, iPad, iPad apps