If you were paying attention over the past couple weeks, then you probably already know the story of Falcon Pro. Falcon is a premium Twitter client for Android, and usually it only costs $2. Unfortunately, the app and the developer Joaquim Verges have run into a few snags.
First, the app hit the 100K token limit, which essentially meant that new users could not connect or use the app. Twitter adopted a new API, that only allows third party apps to have a total of 100K tokens. Every time a new user connects to the app through their Twitter account, a token is used up. Once the app reaches the 100K token limit, it’s sayonara new users.
What’s even more tragic about Falcon Pro hitting the ceiling, is that most of the accounts were apparently from pirated copies of the app. According to Verges, there were only about 40,000 active installs of Falcon Pro, which means that 60,000 users installed the app through other means. It’s likely that these users side loaded the app onto their device after pirating it from somewhere.
In an attempt to discourage new users from purchasing the app, the price of Falcon Pro was jacked up to $132.13. Since it was already useless to new users, Verges wanted to make sure that no one else purchased the app through Google Play.
Not long after, Verges was contacted by Twitter in regards to a petition he started to help increase the token cap for third party apps. Twitter refused to extend the token limit, simply because in terms of features Falcon Pro does not offer anything different than what their native client does.
Luckily, Verges has found a temporary solution.
If you love the old app but have been unable to use it, or you’re a new user and you want to give the app a try, now is your chance. All previous user tokens for the app have been revoked, and anyone wishing to use the app will have to obtain another. That also means, if you use the app regularly you will have to reauthorize your Twitter account.
Apparently, your past viewing data will be wiped clean, but your personal account settings should remain unchanged.
For now, the price of Falcon Pro is back to the standard $2 it always has been. I’m sure if the 100K token limit is reached, we’ll see the price go up yet again.
Unfortunately, while Twitter’s new API requirements are utterly ridiculous, they’re not the ones to blame in this situation. Instead, the 60,000 users who acquired the app through unknown means are.