Twitter app for iPhone goes live in Apple App Store
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Just over a month since it acquired tweeting app Tweetie, Twitter has launched its official app for the iPhone.
The app, named after the social network, is basically Tweetie with some minor improvements thrown in.
Like before, users can send out tweets, see what those they follow are saying and issue direct messages to friends. The app also allows users to ‘share photos, videos and links,’ according to a description in the App Store.
The improvements Twitter made to the original app are relatively slim. The company has upgraded the app’s search capabilities to help users find more content. The app also allows users to browse the social network without having a Twitter account. Users who don’t have a Twitter account can create one from within the app. The company has also made a ‘retweet’ button more accessible.
The most obvious difference between Tweetie and the new Twitter app is that the latter is now available for free. Tweetie was originally on sale for $2.99 before Twitter acquired it.
Twitter’s decision to acquire Tweetie and offer an app of its own hasn’t come without heated debate among developers. Some developers are wondering what the future might hold for their apps now that Twitter is offering the ‘official’ mobile offering. Others are wondering whether it might be time to jump ship to competing social networks.
‘In some ways, I think Twitter has shot itself in the foot, as this gives a huge opening to their competitors to woo the developer community,’ Paul McDonald, creator of mobile Twitter app UberTwitter, said in an interview back in April.
It should be interesting to see what comes of Twitter’s new app.
-- Don Reisinger