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TweetDeck to stop working 7 May, disappear from Google Play

The application for power-users will cease to exist in three weeks, though the web app will continue as it is.

Joe Svetlik Reporter
Joe has been writing about consumer tech for nearly seven years now, but his liking for all things shiny goes back to the Gameboy he received aged eight (and that he still plays on at family gatherings, much to the annoyance of his parents). His pride and joy is an Infocus projector, whose 80-inch picture elevates movie nights to a whole new level.
Joe Svetlik
2 min read

Come in TweetDeck, your time is up. The software will stop working on 7 May, and vanish from Google Play, according to blog post by the TweetDeck team.

Twitter -- which owns TweetDeck -- announced back in March that the software would go the way of the dodo, but this is the first we've heard of an exact date. TweetDeck users, to your respective app stores! Time to find a replacement.

"TweetDeck AIR, TweetDeck for Android and TweetDeck for iPhone will be removed from their respective app stores and will stop functioning on May 7," the blog post reads. "Our Facebook integration will also stop on May 7."

But all is not lost. You'll still be able to use TweetDeck through your browser using the Web application, or the app for Chrome. According to TweetDeck, this is "a reflection of where are TweetDeck power-users are going", with a steady trend towards people using the service on their computers and Twitter on their mobiles.

"We think these web and Chrome apps provide the best TweetDeck experience yet, and that they are the apps in which you'll want to see us add new capabilities first, followed closely by our Mac and PC apps," the company said in the post.

Twitter for Websites support for Internet Explorer 6 and 7 is also going south. The feature lets people building websites embed tweets and Twitter buttons. "The web does not stand still," Ben Ward, head of Twitter for Websites, said in a blog post. "New browser technology allows us to write simpler, faster, smaller code. Old technologies fade into obsolescence."

Fair enough. TweetDeck was at least good enough to acknowledge that closing down its desktop app wouldn't suit all its customers. "And for those of you who are inconvenienced by this shift, our sincere apologies," it said.

Is this change inevitable? A right pain in the backside? Both? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.