The Tweetie app "upgraded" to Twitter for iPhone; they're treated as the same app by the App Store. I don't think it's possible to tell apart upgraders from new users. (I paid for Tweetie)
I'm sure they have a list of email addresses that have paid for Tweetie (or the ability to acquire it). Given this, it seems possible that they could do something to disable it in the app.
I didn't realize Apple kept that from you, but OK. Alternative. Twitter clients normally send their user-agent as part of an API request. Twitter probably still has that data, and could check to see who sent a Tweet from Tweetie between a given period of time. Is there the possibility of false positives? Certainly, but it's better than nothing.
Is it? I'd be afraid of a backlash caused by some minority of users who had e.g. bought tweetie but never actually tweeted using it (just for reading tweets or whatever), had changed twitter accounts since, etc., plus the people claiming to be part of this group in an attempt to get something for free or whatever.
Realistically, they're probably going to have to do something about this much-hated "feature" for everyone anyway.
> Realistically, they're probably going to have to do something about this much-hated "feature" for everyone anyway.
The question is though, is it a feature for some? If so, how many? Twitter's audience is huge. A couple thousand vocal users might be on the minority side.
Twitter is big enough now that it's not going to be able to do anything right in the eyes of everyone. But, they have a ton of data about usage patterns, and other data we don't. I'm willing to bet that the decision to include such a "feature" was backed up by real data.
I'm sure they'll release an update to give you the ability to turn off the "feature" of course, and this whole discussion will be pointless.
The Shazam developer collected device IDs, so that beta testers can now install the free version and still get to the things you could do in the beta (unlimited tagging).
So, with a bit of preparation they could have handled Tweetie customers differently in the Twitter app.
