Twitter has announced the closure of its TV apps on Android TV, Roku and Xbox, which apps’ shutdown could be due to lack of people watching Twitter on TV.
While the shutdown is coming at a period when Twitter is trying to turn its users from third-party apps into using its mobile apps and web clients, as recently, it attempted to kill off popular third-party Mac apps with a series of API changes.
Albeit, Twitter's live streaming content have expanded over the past year, with the TV apps as a way to get the video contents in front of the audience – and particularly those that are looking to watch live sports, follow breaking news and other major world events.
The decision is perhaps tied to GDPR compliance, as Twitter is killing off these apps as they were undeserving of time and attention.
As Xbox and Roku doesn't support a standard regularly supported video player, have made them more difficult to maintain, and the Twitter’s API changes may be a reason too.
However, Twitter for tvOS (Apple TV) and Amazon Fire TV will remain available.
The company launched the two apps to deliver premium livestreaming video to Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV in September 2016, and they were the two that escaped the ax.
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