OAuth kills another Windows Mobile twitter client–HTC Peep is dead : Update – Now fixed

September 1, 2010 | By Surur

HTC Peep no longer working. Twitter has been planning to change the way users can authenticate themselves via applications for some time now, and the deadline for the change over has finally come today.

OAuth is an authentication protocol that allows users to approve application to act on their behalf without sharing their password. It replaces basic authentication, which today will stop working.

Unfortunately this means applications which have not been updated to the new method also stop working, including earlier announced Twikini, which did not have the resources to update the software and subsequently shut down, and now also it appears HTC Peep.

Of course HTC is not particularly short of a the resources to pay a developer or two to update their software stack, but the question remains whether they will in fact release a patch to fix this predictable issue, which has been nearly a year in coming.

Are any of our readers affected by the issue? Tweet us your answer. Actually, thinking about it, rather let us know below Winking smile

Edit: HTC now reports the issue has been fixed by Twitter, but one wonders for how long Twitter will allow the legacy system to remain in place.

Via Pocketnow.com

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged htc, htc peep, oauth, software, twitter, windows mobile

http://twitter.com/chmun77 @chmun77

Hope WP7 will not have such issue with Facebook and other social networks. Otherwise, it will be looking very bad on WP7.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1425785669 Nick Tsiotinos

This is not a Microsoft Issue. It is a HTC application – and it is also available on the Android OS – which is also not working. I'm not sure what Twitter Client MS will be using on WP7 (theirs or users can download 3rd party).
HTC Peep is a very basic Twitter client in any case. I am currently using Motweets, a much more polished Twitter client – that has been updated and works fine…
j2inet

It doesn't have anything to do with the operating system one uses. Twitter used to support one method for authentication, now they nolonger do. Anything that used the original method of authentication will nolonger work. To highlight the OS independent nature of this "problem" checkout tweetdeck for iPhone (Which at this moment won't work and has no update) to the official twitter client for iPhone (Which does work).

Anuj Nair

I reside in India and regularly use Peep on my HD2. I have been effected by this since today morning and havent been able to use Peep. I think if HTC dont give a patch I would need to download a new twitter client.

Anuj Nair
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=698889266 Fred Szibdat

MoTweets is still working like a charm.

http://www.martinschmidler.com martinschmidler

Yeah, because it uses the newer authentification method.

fastlane66

Yep – mine is dead. Why is it that every other platform (including Palm!) has tweetdeck, facebook, etc., but the WinMo folks always have to be the discarded stepchildren? We are still a large segment of the market, though nowhere near the largest…
http://bayulubihardi.co.tv Bayu

my touchtweet is not working now.. any idea for anather twitter client for wondows phone?
iainism

ceTweet and PockeTwit are both non-functional now pending an update to oauth
Nathan

YES, my Twitter app on my T-mobile HD2 is dead!! HTC!! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT!!

Nathan

HTC PEEP is dead on my T-Mobile HD2

efjay

TouchTwit is dead as well.
sonus

This was bound to happen and bound to be the not so pretty part of sticking with Windows Mobile past the support stage. Hopefully HTC does release a patch, as they still do sell the HD2.

http://twitter.com/sab0tage @sab0tage

It's also affecting their Android devices, it's got nothing to do with Windows Mobile. Even the official Android Twitter app doesn't work any more by all accounts.

sonus

Well I'm sure its even affecting the iPhone, but that's not my point. My point is that programs in general for the iPhone and Android have a greater chance of being continually sold and thus fixed as those products don't have a dwinding device market share as they aren't End-Of-Life'd like WM6.x is.

l3v5y

There's no reason HTC (and every other Twitter client) shouldn't have been prepared for this, it was announced an age ago, and is beneficial to end users in that the HTC model stores your password/username in the registry, and then sends it multiple times to get data for Twitter. That's really not good.

With OAuth, you sign in on Twitters page, and then the client gets a token that can be used for future requests (xAuth lets the client send the password once, and then they get a token), which is much better from a user perspective, and not a lot harder to implement.
http://www.facebook.com/J88NYR Jonny 'Sandface' Rose

Meh, I hate twitter and have tried to use it, never seen the point, RRS feeds and Facebook is all you need.
Lundon

Funny I just tried to refresh my new tweets yesterday and got that message. After googling it wasn't clear everyone was having the issue until I read this. Would be great if a patch was released and that we're not forced to do a hard reset for this update. IF or WHEN it actually happens.
http://twitter.com/sorland14 @sorland14

yep – I'm impacted. Used Peep and AndroTweet. Nice job guys… and I'm on the HTC-Hero.
http://www.sreejith.info Sreejith

I am affected. I am unable to download tweets, but can still post new tweets via HTC Peep.
DAM

The Twitter feed in Skyfire is not woring either. Since the company has moved on to 2.0 for Android and left Windows Mobile with 1.5 I'm not sure if we will get an update. This why its important to get an official app like on iOS or Blackberry. That way you are pretty sure to get updates when the come out.
http://twitter.com/sab0tage @sab0tage

Just a theory, but I think Peep uses xAuth, I think this because it requires a username and password, but it shows up on the twitter connections tab. I think Twitter broke xAuth… Supposedly the problem with mobile clients is fixed now, however it's still not working for me.
kat

I have an HTC – how do we authorize another twitter app to work on HTC since the Peep is dead.
drish

tinytwitter is dead too
http://www.facebook.com/J88NYR Jonny Rose

apparently all fixed now.
la_bruin

Panoramic Software's moTweets (http://www.panoramicsoft.com/mobileapps/motweets/moTweets.php) is the only remaining FUNCTIONING Twitter app for WinMo 6.x (supporting oAuth) near as I can tell. Twikini is dead as is TouchTwit… both are commerical products too! All the freeware tools are dead so don't bother.

Besides the "leave a message" function of their web site, TouchTwit's web page has no blog, their Twitter feed has no indication they're doing anything about it, and they are completely silent. Really sad.
andrew

my peep for my HTC legend is also dead… anyone know when the new update will be coming out ???
http://www.facebook.com/vipsphinx Miguel Flores

Actually is not HTC fault, is nobody's fault, a change was made to better secure its clients. Now the question is "When" will a lot of the applications will be updated, I understand the free might take longer or even never to update, but what about the ones that we paid. All of a sudden a bunch of apps from my pc, web & htc hd2 stop working. What will the solution be next?

adamucf

Actually, it is HTC's fault. They had plenty of time to release an update and chose to ignore it.

Brian

How do you make motweet to work, mine stopped!
adamucf

Still not working on my TP2…………………. Judging from the tweets by people replying to @htc it looks like Android is fixed but WM is not.
C0BRA01

Peep still not working as of 11:56pm west coast time 9-3-10. HTC HD2 Running NRG ROM. (Not his fault obviously)
xavier

I have the same problem with my ipgone 3G. no twitter at all, neither official iphone twitter app, neither other tools like fring, or lockinfo
ltjcrew06

Pocketwit just released an update http://code.google.com/p/pocketwit/
Willem

Anyone notice how the death of peep or whatever was used in htc sense on the tp2 also solved the remaining memory leak that caused the SOD crashes?
Maybe this is just specific to the European versions of the htc touch pro 2 but it appears there were actually not one but two programs with memory leaks. To get rid of the SOD, apart from disabling the default twitter client, you also need to update the sms-client with the patch that was released in june.
Willem

With regard to motweets and pocketwit, kudos to the engineers for making the software work but they're not really alternatives, are they? Motweets is adware and Pocketwit is filthy ugly.
Willem

Pocketwit has either had an overhaul or all the screenshots you see around the web are for wimo 6.0. Anyway, I rather like the look. It's not Tweetdeck but it's not bad. I would love to know how i can make it my default twitter app in the sense menu though. It's 2011 now and I feel stupid for letting myself be tricked into buying the htc tp2. It doesn't help that I still have a tab peeps there that doesn't do shit and have to switch to my home page to get to pocketwit. Is there a way to tweak that yourself?