Twitter "Twitpocalypse" Snags Mac, iPhone Apps

awarrenfells notes coverage in Macworld of what is being called "the Twitpocalypse" — Twitter applications breaking as the number of tweets exceeds 32 bits. "The first apparent victim of the Twitpocalypse was The Iconfactory's Twitterrific for iPhone, which stopped working immediately following the event. ... Atebits Software's Tweetie has also been affected by the Twitpocalypse. The program continues to function for browsing and posting tweets, but searches no longer work in the Mac version and results appear one at a time in the iPhone version."

Comments

Well.

[dov_0]

Which twit didn't see that one coming? Surely it should have shown up in testing?

Re:Well.

[0100010001010011]

I want to know who setup twits as signed. Are there going to be negative twits? Twits by your evil twin?

THINK about what your code does and choose the appropriate data type.

Overflowing 32 bits

[AuMatar]

So that means there are 2-4 billion messages (depending on if they meant signed or unsigned)? There goes the last of my faith in humanity.

And...

[dangitman]

... nothing of value was lost.

Re:And...

[eldavojohn]

... nothing of value was lost.

Actually what was lost was any hope left I had for humanity. More than 2,147,483,647 'tweets' have been 'tweeted.' God, I feel stupid just saying that. But what is that? Like half the population of earth?! And then they go so far as to call lack of mobile Twitter applications apocalyptic? Humanity has officially jumped the shark, people. Some other animal should have been given a shot at ruining the world.

I mean at least I can derive cheap entertainment from cell phone texts but Twitter transcripts have little to no value in my eyes. If anyone needs me, I'll be in the backyard building a rocket ship to seek out another planet free of Twitter. Hopefully it'll just have more minor problems like being covered in methane or a flesh eating silicon based virus ...

Re:And...

[MrMista_B]

You feel stupid saying 'tweet', but you're posting on a site called 'Slashdot'.

Re:Is it just me...

[paazin]

Is it just me or does Twitter seem to be the most unreliable of all social networking sites? I mean, between these outages and the "fail whale" that appears every day or so, can't they get some decent servers? I mean, even Facebook which has way more people consuming way more bandwidth doesn't go down near this often.

Probably because they realize as soon as this fad passes, pretty much the only value they'll have are those upgraded servers.

Let's see

[tqft]

2^32 * 140 char is approx 2^40 = 280Gb so all the actual tweets would fit one smallish (new) hard drive

Amount of time used - a lot

Benefit? Unknown.

What do people get out of it? I thought about it and don't see the point unless I am desperate for continual updates about everything. I just took a week off from my regular news sources (website - bloomberg and newspaper types), because I am not having a holiday this year and needed a break. There a few hundred unread rss messages waiting for me (/., groklaw and so on).

Educate me.

Re:Let's see

[Anonymous Coward]

2^10 = 1 KB (1024)
2^20 = 1 MB (1024^2)
2^30 = 1 GB (1024^3)
2^40 = 1 TB (1024^4)

2^40 != 280GB. 2^40 != 280 Gb

((2^32)*140)/(1024^3) = 560 GB, or using 1000 instead of 1024, 601 GB.

Including some other stuff, lets make it 160 bytes/tweet for things like username or something, 640 GB.
Still, you can by drives that can hold that much for under $100.

I must be getting old...

[religious freak]

Funny computing names like beans, cookies and web were pretty cool and hip... then came blogs, vlogs and pods, which I found rather to be rather silly words... but Twitpocalypse??? WTF?

Re:I must be getting old...

[Snarf You]

Just wait until 64 bits becomes too small... yes, I am referring to Twittageddon.

Twitter uses 64bits, 3rd party apps do not

[ZyBex]

I'm kind of tired with reading that this is Twitter's fault. Twitter actually uses 64 bits ID internally. The "problem" is with 3rd party apps that interface with Twitter's API and expect to receive only a signed 32 bit integer.

http://twitter.com/twitterapi/status/2048659057

Disclaimer: I've never used twitter.

On a related note

[MLS100]

I'm quickly running out of synonyms for 'pointless' to troll all these Twitter stories.

"Twitter itself was unaffected"

[John Hasler]

Yes. When I first saw mention of this I got my hopes up but they were soon dashed.

Twitpocalypse?

[Reed Solomon]

Man am I glad I never got on this bandwagon.

Re:Twitpocalypse?

[selven]

Just wait for the Twitargeddon. And then the Twapture. Hold on a sec, let me open up my trusty thesaurus. Twitastrophe. Twinihilation. Holotwaust. Twataclysm. Twitimation. End of the tworld. Don't let Elmer Fudd find out about this cause that would be a great big Twagedy!

Why is twitter hate so cool around /.

[loteck]

You guys have been calling twitter a fad for at least two years, meanwhile families, businesses, celebrities and politicians have been flocking to it in droves and using it extremely successfully. For example, Dell.

Also, I see a lot of "what does Twitter really do??" posts. Either these posters are simply being obtuse or /. IQ's have plummeted recently.

Re:Why is twitter hate so cool around /.

[tsa]

Some fads last long. See Second life, or SUVs. Both useless but it took a long time for most people to realize that.

Re:Is it just me...

[iluvcapra]

I mostly agree with you, but I'm going to take it easy on hating twitter for the time being, since it seems to be the only mass media still operating in Iran at the moment.

Correct name should be Twitterdammerung

[elwinc]

The correct name for the Twitter Apocalypse is "Twitterdammerung" first mentioned in http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/04/gop_twitterdammerung.php