The saying goes: "Nobody reads anymore."

I don't agree entirely, but some of us - myself included, on more than one occasion - have failed to read a piece properly, getting halfway through before jumping to an incorrect conclusion based on half a story; or have felt so inflamed by an opening paragraph that we don't get past it to read the remaining text.

I'd originally planned on penning this post as a lament and a whinge on the sad state of affairs that continue to surround the development of Tweetie 2 and the continuing lack of clarity from Loren Brichter but, since yesterday morning, a lot of people picked up on a tweet from Evan Williams, the ex-CEO of Twitter, on his #AskEv slot, and have taken that to mean that Twitter 2 has now been canned.

Originally, that's what I thought. But I read it again:

I seem to recall that Loren Brichter's company, atebits, was acquired purely for the Tweetie for iOS and that Tweetie for Mac wasn't something that would be actively developed - so Evan is just reiterating what he said all along. After all, Loren was hired into the mobile team, and that's his day job as far as Twitter, Inc. is concerned.

Whilst the question was asked a day before Ev's "we're not investing" tweet, Tom Hannibal's interaction with Loren - whilst characteristically uncertain - did suggest that Tweetie 2 for Mac may still see the light of day:

Beware the double negative - it caught a few people out, Tom himself included - which suggests that it's happening, though when it'll happen is another subject altogether. One thing, however, is for certain - Twitter, Inc. considers Twitter.com to be the official desktop client, and thus they won't invest into Tweetie for Mac, so if it is going to happen, it'll be happening in Loren's own time.

My opinion is that Tweetie 2 will arrive at some point, but I won't be holding my breath. I'm already considering dropping my moratorium on Adobe AIR apps and evaluating a few of the AIR-powered Twitter clients, since that's where the majority of them seem to be, but - for now - I'm going to continue looking for a native OS X client.

Send recommendations and wish me luck!