Basically this boils down to "don't build apps with similar functionality to twitter.com". While that may sting some developers, at least it's a pretty clear and unambiguous signal.
One nice thing is that they're spending time and effort to talk to their dev community. Much better than the Apple approach, which is to make large disruptive changes without warning or explanation.
To be clear, we are going to work hard to improve our product, add new functionality, make acquisitions when it's in the best interest of users and the whole ecosystem at large. Each one of those things has the potential to upset a company or developer that may have been building in that space and they then have to look for new ways to create value for users.
The message isn't just "don't build apps with similar functionality to twitter.com". The message is "if you build apps that provide value to the ecosystem or the users, we might decide to buy you (at our price) or copy you (and hence crush you) and you'll have to find something else to do."
So you pivot. Implement a feature that a niche will really like, but that the official Twitter app won't implement because it complicates things for those that don't care and fills a fairly small niche.
For example, I'd love to have a client that lets me filter extremely powerfully. I should be able to filter by any field (for example, filter out whose source is Ad.ly because it's all ads), use regular expressions, etc.
I think some apps come close, but I don't think any are quite as powerful as I'd like. Even if one is, there are plenty more niches to fill. An iPhone client that's not as pretty or feature-packed, but which loads instantly, for example.
I think a large part of that was the growing popularity of Twitter, the low barrier to entry for creating these clients and that Twitter.com took a rather minimal approach. Most of the Twitter clients early on were built just because the creator wanted something other clients or Twitter.com didn't have. But over time that changes and you begin to serve a section of the Twitter audience. So this begs the question; has the string of recent events changed the way Twitter client developers are able to server their market. If it has then Twitter should directly address that. If it hasn't but has confused people then it is important that Twitter is open about their policies and ideologies.
"...when we dug in a little bit we realized that it was causing massive confusion among user's who had an iPhone and were looking to use Twitter for the first time. They would head to the App Store, search for Twitter and would see results that included a lot of apps that had nothing to do with Twitter and a few that did, but a new user wouldn't find what they were looking for and give up. That is a lost user for all of us."
with:
"We will also admit our mistakes when they are made and
the Blackberry client should never have been labeled "official". It has since been changed and you won't see that language used with Twitter clients in the future."
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In the one case the lack of an official client was hurting new user acquisition and in the other (Blackberry) case it was stepping on developer toes?
I have a feeling that the word “official” connotes “authentic.” E.g., I would trust the “official” version of a music video to not having any surprises, while the unofficial versions are less trustworthy.
I think Twitter realizes that using the word “official” to describe their apps makes it seem like other developers create unofficial apps, when in fact the developers are using the same officially-sanctioned APIs.
Sorry, latest move may chafe some developers, but in the current offerings of Twitter clients, users suffer.
At least in my view, where none of the "third party" Twitter client choices are acceptable (though, disclaimer, I've not experienced Tweetie, but a half dozen others that inevitably send me back to Safari).
Contrast to Facebook where the iPhone app is extremely polished and eloquently bundles just about all of the core functionality.
I've not used Facebook for the iPhone but last time I used it for android it was basically for notifications and sent me to the mobile interface for all meaningful interaction.
One nice thing is that they're spending time and effort to talk to their dev community. Much better than the Apple approach, which is to make large disruptive changes without warning or explanation.