Official Twitter iPhone app: ten things you need to know

Twitter released its official app for iPhone and iPod touch today, and while we’ll have a full in depth review forthcoming once we’ve completed testing here at Beatweek, here’s what we’ve learned so far about the app in early testing, and what you need to know about it as well:

1. Unlike Tweetie before it, the new official Twitter app for iPhone and iPod touch is free.

2. The new app is technically version 3.0 of Tweetie, and yes, installing it on your iPhone or iPod touch will permanently delete Tweetie 2.

3. “Twitter for iPhone” feels an awful lot like using the old Tweetie 2: trademarks like pull-to-refresh and the five icons across the bottom of the app are still the same.

4. Lists are still buried under the “More” tab, despite the hopes of some users that they’d be made more prominent.

5. Swiping across a tweet now reveals six tappable icons, one of which is an auto-retweet option. Good news for those who like Twitter’s new official method of retweeting, bad news for those who prefer to stick with manual retweets.

6. We haven’t yet been able to determine whether the caching problems that some users had intermittently experienced with Tweetie 2 are still there.

7. The new app icon (pictured above) is radically different from that of Tweetie 2, and now features a bright blue background with a white bird. With no eyes. It’ll take some getting used to.

8. Twitter for iPhone has proven to be exceedingly popular in its first day of release, as it’s currently the fourth most popular free iPhone app overall, and the number one free app in the social networking category.

9. The release of Twitter for iPhone in no way means the end of third party Twitter apps for iPhone, as the dozens of options available in the App Store are still there and aren’t going anywhere, unless users decide to completely abandon them.

10. Yes, it’ll work on your iPad, but it’s the size of an iPhone screen. There’s an iPad-optimized version coming later, but this’ll do for now if you’re intent on using the “official” Twitter app on your iPad instead of one of the various iPad-optimized third party Twitter apps already available.