Problem: There is an important limitation in the API regarding retweets. With the new retweets feature, in the current API, it is not possible to get a complete timeline for a user (unless you have the user's password). This is bad. Firstly, it means user timelines retrieved from the API will always be potentially incomplete, with retweets excluded. Yet retweets are considered part of a users timeline and always have been. Secondly, it means I can't retrieve my own complete timeline without logging in, which is surely an unnecessary extra step.
The API functionality for retweets seems inconsistent with other API methods, notably statuses/user_timeline which does not require a log- in. It's also inconsistent with the RSS feed which does include retweets in a users' timeline. Solution: A new API method is required, to retrieve retweets for a user without logging in. DOCUMENTATION statuses/user_timeline Returns the 20 most recent statuses posted from the authenticating user. It's also possible to request another user's timeline via the id parameter. This is the equivalent of the Web /<user> page for your own user, or the profile page for a third party. Note: For backwards compatibility reasons, retweets are stripped out of the user_timeline when calling in XML or JSON (they appear with 'RT' in RSS and Atom). If you'd like them included, you can merge them in from statuses retweeted_by_me. http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method%3A-statuses-user_timeline
