CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iosswiftauthenticationtwitter
Laurent
Laurent

Reputation: 83

How to authenticate using the installed Twitter app

If the user is logged-in with the native Twitter app installed, I want my app to open the Twitter app to request authorization.

I already implemented the flow to get the oauth_token in order to start the login process through Twitter's api. Only, the current API Documentation do not mention anything about how to use the native iOS app in the process. It only sends back a url for the user to log in.

let url = URL(string: "https://api.twitter.com/oauth/authorize?oauth_token=\(result.oauthToken)")!
            
DispatchQueue.main.async {
   UIApplication.shared.open(url)
}

On getting the requested oauth_token, I get this link. Opening the link will display a Webview to login. Not the native Twitter iOS app.

I tried to use a deeplink to manually launch the Twitter app, but I couldn't found any resources on how to setup the link properly.

So far I have tried things like:

twitterauth://authorize?consumer_key=[KEY]&consumer_secret=[SECRET]&oauth_callback=swifter-[KEY]

or

twitterauth://authorize?oauth_token=\(result.oauthToken)

without any success...

As mentioned in another post, Clubhouse has implemented exactly this flow. So it is possible. The question is how ? 😅

Upvotes: 1

Views: 613

Answers (1)

esqew
esqew

Reputation: 44722

This flow seems to have not been officially supported since the retirement of TwitterKit on May 1, 2018. Any applications that still offer this functionality to their end users likely have some sort of partnership with Twitter to allow for this which is otherwise undocumented publicly.

The reasoning for this was detailed sparsely in a related Twitter Developer Forums thread:

Unfortunately at this time we have had to make some incremental adjustments that are not so smooth for everyone; especially as you’ve found, for mobile app developers. We’re in the middle of a transition to a new API platform (via Twitter Developer Labs) and there will be some changes as we go along - we are asking for your feedback to help us, and if you check the ideas, authentication and authorization is something we’ve heard a lot about.

I cannot tell you today exactly when we’ll get to an enhanced solution, but this is something we are actively working on.

Direct link

The official guidance is to use the traditional WebView method until Twitter officially re-releases this capability:

I don’t believe that this is possible any longer, so I would encourage you to use the full OAuth flow. I apologise that this may not be what your users prefer, but this is the documented way to gain authorisation (we do not document or support URL schemes for the native iOS app).

Direct link

We do not support or document any means of users signing in to Twitter outside of the OAuth flow; any use of undocumented features is subject to change without notice.

Direct link

As linked above Twitter appears to be soliciting feedback on this via their UserVoice page, should you feel so inclined to suggest the re-implementation of such a feature.

Upvotes: 5

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