Tweetbot 6 is an update to the popular Twitter app and it brings a subscription model

Tweetbot 6 Header (Image credit: Tapbots)

What you need to know

Tweetbot 6 is a new update to the popular Twitter app.
The update sees the inclusion of the updated Twitter API that allows for cards and polls.
Tweetbot is now an app with a subscription model.

Tapbots today released Tweetbot 6, bringing a major revision to the popular Twitter app for iPhone and iPad. I say major because it's a move to a whole new version number, but on the face of it, not all that much has changed. Deeper down though, the underpinnings are now in place for Tweetbot to improve over the coming years.

Tweetbot 5 was getting long in the tooth and didn't take advantage of the latest Twitter had to offer. Tweetbot 6 now supports Twitter's API 2.0, bringing with it support for polls and Twitter cards for the first time. That's a big change, especially for those of us who had to decipher what some tweets were about because the card was missing.

It's also telling that Tapbots is calling this an "early access" situation, suggesting there is still plenty to come in the future.

Tweetbot is an award-winning Twitter client for iOS and the Mac. This early access version for iOS uses the new Twitter API. We are calling it early access because there are many new features on our roadmap to be built as well as new API's to adopt as Twitter makes them available. Tweetbot 6 contains all the features found in version 5 and more.

This update also includes new app icons and some new interface themes, as well as the ability to set Chrome and Firefox as the web browser of choice. All of the popular muting and syncing features are still there, too – although there's no word yet on when we can expect a new Tweetbot for Mac. I've asked.

Perhaps the biggest news with Tweetbot 6 is the move to a subscription model, however. Users can download Tweetbot for free so long as they don't want to be able to actually tweet. To do so, they'll pay $0.99 per month or, for now at least, $5.99 per year. I'd posit that's a bargain for the app that is probably in the top three apps I use the most, but I'm well aware of how the internet feels about subscriptions. I'm curious to see how this one goes down.

Regardless, you can download Tweetbot 6 from the App Store right now.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.