Twitter takes the axe to TweetDeck apps for iPhone, Android and AIR

Updated: Twitter announced April 19 that the TweetDeck properties will sign off for good May 7, while Facebook integration will stop the same day.

Cold and clinical. Just like that.

Original article...

Rest in peace TweetDeck for Android, iPhone and AIR. We'll miss you all.

Twitter gave word today that in order to devote its energies towards developing the "modern, web-based versions of TweetDeck," the company is chucking support for older apps plus discontinuing Facebook integration.

The news may rattle users who've grown accustomed to sending and reading tweets from the various applications, but it's not such a surprise to those who've noticed it's been years since they've been updated - which is probably everybody.

The apps will say sayonara to their respective app stores in early May and will slip silently into the abyss of non-functionality shortly after.

Life after apps

TweetDeck will continue on as a "fast and feature-rich" web app for various browsers as well as a Chrome app. The app for Chrome features notifications, the tweet team pointed out.

"In many ways, doubling down on the TweetDeck web experience and discontinuing our app support is a reflection of where our TweetDeck power-users are going," the announcement concerning the change read.

"Over the past few years, we've seen a steady trend towards people using TweetDeck on their computers and Twitter on their mobile devices. This trend coincides with an increased investment in Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android..."

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While Twitter is going where the trends are taking it, the discontinuation of the apps won't be without hitches: the apps rely on v1.0 of Twitter's API, which is retiring starting in April.

As the retirement draws near and tests take place, all three TweetDeck apps may experiences outages before they're finally shuttered.

Voice for Facebook

While Twitter says goodbye to some old standbys, Facebook today said hello to an update to its Messenger app on Android that introduces free voice over internet protocol (VoIP) for users in Canada.

Canadians have already had their hand at VoIP on their iOS Messenger app, and it has made its way to the US, so perhaps northern Android users harangued Facebook to get the same service started on the competitive OS.

Android users will find a few other features in version 2.3, including updates to group conversations and bug fixes. The free calling does steal the thunder a bit.