Hot and Rising app: Twitter official for iPhone

Twitter’s acquisition of popular independent iPhone app Tweetie (and the hiring of Tweetie’s sole developer in the process) earlier this year has finally paid off for users in the form of Twitter for iPhone, which is based on Tweetie and still performs quite a bit like it but is now a completely free app for iPhone and iPod touch users. While there are still dozens of third party Twitter apps in the App Store which each have various features and cater to various niches, it’s fairly easy to recommend Twitter for iPhone as the best place for users to start.

The app comes complete with support for Twitter lists, search, retweeting, trending topics, and the ability to be logged into multiple Twitter accounts simultaneously (handy if you’ve got professional and personal Twitter accounts). The only widespread complaint from users thus far is that the new icon, which features a bird in white silhouette with no eyes, looks a bit creepy.

A more serious, but much more rare, complaint is that a few users are still suffering from the same caching issues that plagued a handful of Tweetie users, in which leaving the app and then relaunching it would cause hours or even days worth of tweets to disappear and have to be reloaded. But this issue appears not to affect the vast majority of users, and combined with its free price tag and the potential it has going forward now that it’s got Twitter’s official backing (and funding), makes Twitter for iPhone both hot and rising.