Official Twitter for iPhone quietly launches

Tweetie 3.0, rebranded as simply Twitter, provides elegant mobile microblogging experience

Sometime on Wednesday a new contender for best iPhone Twitter client silently made its way into the App Store. This time, however, it was official.

It's been about a month since Twitter acquired Atebits, the company responsible for one of the most popular Twitter clients for iPhone, Tweetie. Now Twitter has finally tweaked the app a little bit and rebranded it as Twitter for iPhone.

The app itself is solid. As a logged-in user, the app automatically loads your refreshed stream first and foremost. From other tabs, the user can read @ messages directed at him or herself, check messages, perform powerful searches (for users or topics), edit their profile, and create lists. And, of course, creating a tweet or direct message is always just one click away.

Looking at the company blog, it seems that Twitter is most excited about the fact that anyone can use this new Twiter app without even having a Twitter account. A user can browse trends, read Top Tweets, find popular users, and check out public tweets geographically, all without logging in.

Personally, what struck me most about this Twitter client is its speed. In checking my stream, refreshing my stream, searching for users, following other users, and more, I never encountered any hiccups like I would sometimes experience using third-party clients. I'm still not sure whether this is just a result of how good Tweetie always was or whether Twitter just knows its own API better than everyone else.

A complaint people seem to have about the app comes down to pure aesthetics. Twitter for iPhone doesn't really compete with the designs or utility of toolbar labels that come with other apps, like Twitterific. Nevertheless, as a free and ad-free app officially distributed by Twitter, Twitter for iPhone is sure to be a popular choice among users.