Threads launched last summer as Instagram’s take on a Twitter-style app. But in classic Instagram fashion, Threads is currently iPhone-only and doesn’t offer native iPad or Mac clients. The web version works well as a progressive web app, but chances of a native multi-platform option have been bleak.

Until today, when Threads launched its third-party developer API and made it possible for third-party apps to publish content to the service.

Third-party Threads app integrations coming soon

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, writes:

Excited to announce the Threads API is launching today – you can now use your favorite third-party applications to publish posts, reply to others, see insights and more. Hope this helps businesses and creators manage their Threads presence at scale. As always, open to hearing your feedback and suggestions on how we can improve 🙏🏼

Today the API is primarily designed for publishing posts and seeing activity insights. In other words, it’s best suited for tools like HootSuite and other third-party social media aggregators. But Mosseri’s final sentence indicates the Threads team is open to building on this foundation.

I hope, for example, that one day third-party developers like the teams behind the former TweetBot and Twitterrific apps can build an alternative client for Threads that works similarly to those beloved apps.

When Mastodon began taking off following X’s downward spiral, it too became the source of a lot of activity among the developer community, with great third-party apps like Ivory debuting. Here’s hoping Threads expands the API to offer similar tools that can power excitement and creativity with Threads apps.

9to5Mac’s Take

New third-party Threads tools for iPhone could be great, but I’m especially excited at the prospect of native iPad and Mac apps that support Threads. It may take some time for apps to adopt the new APIs, but I’ll be watching this space with anticipation.