Twitter announces new developer platform to open up more access

New Delhi: Twitter has announced a new developer platform that will help the micro-blogging company build a decentralised, open platform in the future.

Twitter said that the second version of its application programming interface (API) is ready to come out of early access and become the default for developers.

Some of the biggest changes include making it easier for developers to get started on the platform with the introduction of 'Essential access' and opening up more access for free. Essential access includes immediate access to the Twitter API v2 upon signup, one App environment and the ability to retrieve up to 500,000 tweets per month.

Other features include updating its Developer Policy to encourage new types of innovation that will lead to greater impact on the public conversation itself, and launching new features and officially making the av2 API' the primary Twitter API.

Twitter is also introducing a new free 'Elevated access' level, which includes three App environments (development, staging, production) and the ability to retrieve up to two million tweets per month.

"If you're already using the Twitter API v2, you'll automatically see your Projects upgraded to Elevated access. Otherwise, you'll need to apply for Elevated access," the platform added.

In another development, the micro-blogging site said that it will no longer automatically refresh timelines on the web with new tweets. according to the company, users can now decide when they want to load new tweets.

Twitter acknowledged that in the past, tweets would often disappear from view mid-read when a user's timeline would automatically refresh. Now, users can load new tweets when they want to by clicking on the tweet counter bar at the top of their timelines, reports TechCrunch.

In September, the company noted it would be rolling out updates to the way it displays tweets so that they would not disappear while users were still reading them.

It is worth pointing out that Twitter's iOS and Android apps also do not automatically refresh users' timelines when they open up the app. Instead, users can click on the highlighted home button on the navigation bar to load new tweets.

Twitter also recently announced that it will no longer automatically crop image previews on the web, after rolling out full-size image previews on mobile earlier this year.

On Twitter for the web, images will now display in full without any cropping. Instead of gambling on how an image will show up in the timeline, images will look just like they did when you shot them.

These tweaks come as Twitter has been working to enhance its platform and make its services more accessible.