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If you have been using Twitter app on your iPhone, you would have noticed one big change Twitter made last time, it removed the swipe to tweet feature. Thankfully they have brought back that important feature this time. Version 4.1 adds improvements such as better Direct Message handling and improved image quality. With 2 most important features, Twitter has now returned swipe shortcuts and the ability to copy text to its iPhone app.

Here are list of new features:

Changes are for iPhone only:
- Swipe shortcut
- Copy and paste for tweets and profiles
- Press and hold actions on links in tweet details
- Font size settings
- Direct Message improvements
- Confirmation alert for Find Friends
- Improved startup time and general performance improvement
- Improved image quality in tweet detail
- Accessibility improvements
- Profile shows whether a user follows you
- Verified badges in people search results
- New language: Turkish
- Lots of other polish and bug fixes

Yesterday Twitter admitted that it stores iPhone contact info for 18 months when any user uses “find friends” feature found in the app. The data stored on their servers includes address book fields such as names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

Twitter spokeswoman Carolyn Penner has responded to the situation, claiming that a future app update will clarify the language to avoid any misunderstanding regarding the scanning and storage methods. ”We want to be clear and transparent in our communications with users,” Penner wrote in an e-mail, which was posted by LA Times. “In place of ‘Scan your contacts,’ we will use ‘Upload your contacts’ and ‘Import your contacts.”"

Twitter plans to update both its iOS and Android apps soon.

Twitter was updated to V4.0 yesterday with a totally different UI. The latest version of Twitter offers a faster, simpler way to stay close to everything you care about on your iPhone. Click update under App Store and download it now. Its very different. I am still try to locate my fav shortcuts and features. Version 4.0 is only available to iPhone for the time being:

Home is where you start from: a personal collection of Tweets from the sources you care about. The Tweet details show rich information such as replies, retweets and embedded images.

Connect is the place to see who followed or mentioned you, retweeted or favorited one of your Tweets. It’s where you keep the conversation flowing.

Discover is where you can tap into the stories and trends people are talking about in your world. You can also find friends, browse interests, and explore hashtags here.

Me puts you and your interests front and center. From here you can exchange Direct Messages with your followers.

Quick Update: Twitter for iPhone and iPad has been updated. It includes the ability to upload photos to Twitter’s picture hosting services and a fresh UI for Direct Messages on the iPad. Heres the download link.

• Enhanced sign up experience
• Upload photos to Twitter (pic.twitter.com)
• Updated Direct Messages design on iPad
• Tap a location on iPad to show Tweets nearby
• Bug fixes and minor enhancements

Over the weekend I found an interesting mail from Kelley of Macapper.com. She shared an interesting post from their website, 10 Awesome iPhone Apps for Twitter which she suggested to share on my blog. Pretty cool list of 10 Twitter apps that might be of interest to you guys too. Check it out:

We would love to share with you an article that we just posted on our own blog! (10 Awesome iPhone Apps for Twitter) is linked below and could be a fun way to share this announcement with your readers.

Here is the list:

1. Tweetdeck – The little black bird on a yellow background is the icon for this Twitter connection that you can use with your iphone. Ease of use is, of course, what makes it so popular, but easy doesn’t mean limited. It has plenty of customizable options. Add and remove columns; zoom in and out; quickly tweet a response.

2. HootSuite – This app has a little brown owl for its icon. You can scroll across its columns by simply swiping your finger across your phone face. You can also schedule tweets in addition to creating real time tweets, a very unique feature. Some users have felt that the setup on this app was a bit cumbersome, but if the scheduling feature is important to you, it can be worth the initial hassle. It also does come in both a free and paid version.

3. Twitbird – This app comes in three different versions. There is a free version that is supported by the ads that come with it. Then there are two paid versions; one that allows two different Twitter accounts and the professional version which can handle up to sixteen different Twitter accounts. It will also allow for geotagging your tweets and has a built-in address book.

4. Official Twitter – There’s no sense ignoring the obvious, Twitter has it own iphone app, of course. It has your url shortening, hashtags and @ easily accessible. It also allows you to go directly to a web link from a tweet.

5. Echofon – This app has been around for awhile and still maintains its popularity. It is very easy to use and allows you to see pics and video in your tweets. It also comes in a free and paid version. The paid version cleans removes the ads you need to deal with in the free version.

6. Twitterific – This free app can be used on either an iphone or an ipad. You can set filters to see just what is important to you. You can also send links to your ‘Instapaper’ account for reading them later on. This app does have some limitations, all you have to do is scroll through the FAQ’s to see the number of answers that begin with ‘No’ to see that.

7.  Seesmic – This is more than a Twitter app for your iphone. It is a social media app. For some, this is a great tool. If you are wanting to update and manage facebook, myspace and twitter all at the same time, from the same application, Seesmic is a good choice. If Twitter is real true love, then you might be better off with one of the other apps.

8. TweetStack – Columns, searchable, custom tabs, retweet… lots of features available with this stack of little birdies.

9. Twinkle – Yes, that is like in ’stars’. This little apps is all about location and getting connected with Tweeters that are nearby. But that is not all it does. You can still use it to stay connect with all your Tweets. It has gotten some great reviews.

10. IM+ - If you spread yourself across all the social networks and online communication platforms, you may want this app. It will be hard to find an instant messaging platform this app doesn’t connect to. Keep all your socializing within one app by using this one.

Thanks Kelley. [via - Macapper]

Yes, this seems to be a confirmed news. DaringFireball’s John Gruber adds some comments suggesting that Twitter integration is indeed in iOS 5 and that there is more to it than just photo integration:

So close to the bigger story, but yet so far. Imagine what else the system could provide if your Twitter account was a system-level service.

Yesterday TechCrunch reported that Apple will be integrating Twitter photo sharing directly into iOS 5:

We’ve heard from multiple sources that Twitter is likely to have a big-time partner for such a service: Apple. Specifically, we’re hearing that Apple’s new iOS 5 will come with an option to share images to Twitter baked into the OS. This would be similar to the way you can currently share videos on YouTube with one click in iOS. Obviously, a user would have to enable this feature by logging in with their Twitter credentials in iOS. There would then be a “Send to Twitter” option for pictures stored on your device.

Waiting for Apple’s WWDC which will happen at 10 am PDT, coming Monday

[via - TechCrunch, DaringFireball]

Quick Update: CNN and CNET have finally broke the news that TweetDeck has been acquired by Twitter for $40 million. Twitter has yet to officially confirm, but judging by what we’re hearing from sources close to the deal, it’s done and done, reports TechCrunch.

Yesterday Twitter killed @ceoSteveJobs which had over 400,000 Twitter followers. This was a fake SteveJobs Twitter account. And within 24hrs it has been reactivated with another name @falseSteveJobs. Looks like changing the name is enough for Twitter to accept a banner user name

Quick Update: Twitter has updated its iPhone and iPad apps to accomodate Push notification. Here’s what’s new in the update:

iPhone:
* Improved display of shortened URLs
* Correctly load reserved Twitter.com paths, such as http://twitter.com/newtwitter
* Fix connection error caused by a device clock being set incorrectly
* Additional retina graphics
* Enable geotagging in your account with one tap

iPad:
* Inline media
* Manage saved searches
* UI improvements

Though Facebook is still thinking, Twitter accepted Apple’s Ping request for a social networking partnership. Yesterday Twitter announcement will make it easy for people to share music discoveries with friends and family. AppleInsider share this info a while back:

Starting Thursday, Twitter and Ping offered friends the ability to put Ping activity, song previews and links to purchase and download music from Apple’s iTunes Store in posts made on Twitter.com. Can also link their Twitter account to find Ping users among their Twitter friends.

Once the accounts are linked, any “Post,” “Like,” “Review,” or anything else shared on Ping is automatically sent to Twitter followers as well. The content will also include playable song previews and links to purchase and download music through the iTunes Store.

And more over iTunes song previews are available on Twitter.com in all 23 countries where the iTunes Store sells music.

[via - AppleInsider]

Apple had held a focus group and asked users if they wanted an on-screen keyboard or a physical keyboard on their phone, few would have selected the on-screen keyboard.Yes, you are reading it right… All these years I had been under the impression that one needs to invent something that consumers want. We’ve been thought early in our life that we need to first try to understand the customer behavior and only then build something for them. Well this basic principle we learn during our MBA classes should be ignored, according to me. You need to do something that you LOVE. I have been thinking about this thumb-rule for a long time. Wonder why Apple, Google, Twitter and Facebook who created their most successful products and apps without any customer inputs. Well today I found a great article on Datamation which has changed the way I think about innovation. Check it out guys, the article is called “How to Succeed Like Apple“. Here are few excerpts from the article.

Thanks to Mike Elgan for writing this awesome article – How to Succeed Like Apple

- Why does Apple dominate all aspects of the digital music market, but fail in TV?
- Why does Microsoft do so well in desktop operating systems, but can’t translate that winning formula to cell phones?Why is Google so good at search, yet so clearly miss with Google Orkut?
- How did a guy like Mark Zuckerberg create a runaway success like Facebook?

So what is the answer? Apple’s announced new line of iPods and iTunes for coming holiday season (2010) this week gives us a hint.

Read more… »

Twitter’s official iPhone app ‘Twitter for iPhone’ was launched worldwide yesterday. It finally started showing up in the US App Store a bit later. But finally it made it. ‘Tweetie 2.0′ was the most popular Twitter client for iPhone and was bought by Twitter few weeks back. And then it was reincarnated to be the first Official Twitter App. Its pretty much the same as before with a few cool new features. Twitter is available for Free, here is the App Store link. And heres the complete change list:

• Search has been reorganized, now you can search all tweets and find users in the same spot, view Top Tweets and Browse Suggested users.
• Search results now include Top Tweets, try it with Trends…winner combo!
• You can now use Twitter without an account! Search, Browse uses, view trends and top tweets.
• Sign-up is now availabile within the application as well, complete with Suggested user list.
• More tab has been re-organized to accomplish all this. Users with one account can add a second account under the Accounts and Settings button here.
• Actions we’ve found people use most, like Retweet have been moved to the main actions bar.
• Minor tweaks were made to tweet rendering so they match Twitter.com tweets

The search feature in this version is pretty interesting, it lets you find tweets along with users details. It also shows top tweets with trends. Another interesting feature, Suggested Users help you find twitter users based on their genres like Arts, Music, Design etc.