Twitter has announced the discontinuation of its TweetDeck Air, TweetDeck for Android, and TweetDeck for iPhone apps in an attempt to focus on the web-based version of TweetDeck. The Windows and Mac apps will stick around, getting features behind the web version as it evolves.

Twitter says the trio of apps will be removed from their respective app marketplaces in early May and will cease to work shortly after. In the time leading up to the app removal the apps will experience outages.

The shift of focus for the Tweetdeck team will remove Facebook integration from the apps. "We’ll also discontinue support for our Facebook integration," the company says. In June 2012 it made the move of taking LinkedIn and Myspace out of the mix as well.

Twitter justifies dropping support by continuing adding features to its web version, which is said to offer "some unique features like notifications".

"In many ways, doubling down on the TweetDeck web experience and discontinuing our app support is a reflection of where our TweetDeck power-users are going. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a steady trend towards people using TweetDeck on their computers and Twitter on their mobile devices," Twitter said in a blog post.

The TweetDeck team as a whole seems to be more active than ever, even with the closing of the apps. Twitter says it has doubled the size of the TweetDeck team over the past six months and wants to keep hiring.

UK-based TweetDeck was founded in 2008 by Iain Dodsworth and was later acquired by Twitter for £25 million in both cash and Twitter stock. Dodsworth later left the company.

Twitter says it expects users to flock to the Twitter.app on their respective handsets. While Twitter didn't mention it, there is also the TweakDeck app available on Google Play that offers the features TweetDeck had before it was acquired.

Twitter users: does this bum you out?