Twitter has dropped support for iOS 11 and earlier

Twitter has stopped supporting iPhones and iPads running on iOS 11 or earlier. The app may still work for now, but future updates won't be delivered to earlier versions of the operating system, 9to5Mac reports.

In the latest update to Twitter, the company writes "Please update to iOS 12+ to continue to benefit from regular feature updates."

Very few people are impacted — It's normal for developers to end support for earlier OS versions because they often aren't capable of supporting the same features and designs of more recent operating systems. Apple is set to release iOS 14 this fall with a slew of new privacy measures and new features like widgets. If Twitter were to continue supporting iOS 11, which was released in 2017, it would have to maintain separate versions — one for iOS 14 and another for earlier iterations of the OS that don't support the same capabilities.

Any device that can run iOS 11 can also run iOS 12, and unlike Android most iOS users tend to upgrade their hardware to the latest operating system. About 80 percent of all iOS devices in use are running on iOS 13 according to Apple's own numbers. The amount of people who won't receive further updates, then, is marginal.

Twitter killed third-party alternatives — Third-party Twitter clients could continue to run on iOS 11, though in a limited capacity. The company in recent years has discouraged the development of such alternative Twitter apps like Tweetbot by restricting some features and making them only accessible from the official app. Third-party apps cannot access the Explore tab that features curated news, for instance. So they're technically supported, but not really.

Twitter wants users to access the social network through its official app where it pushes advertisements and can track their behavior more closely. If you want to continue using Twitter, you should update your device.