Twitter lands on the Apple iPad

Micro blogging phenomenon Twitter has finally launched an official application for Apple’s iPad tablet device, as it seeks to compete with rival third party apps from providers such as TweetDeck.

Available free of charge from the App Store, Twitter for iPad seeks to make the most of the tablet’s multi touch interface.

To this end, tapping on a tweet in the app opens a pane to the right which could show a video, photo, news story or related tweet, depending on the content of the original tweet.

“You can continue tapping on Tweets, opening new panes, and getting new content as long as you’d like to. And, it’s really easy to move between panes by swiping to the right or left,” noted a blog post by Twitter’s Leland Rechis.

Tapping a video link or opening a new web page with embedded video, meanwhile, enables the user to play that video inline.

“The panes in Twitter for iPad let you look through your timeline while a video is loading, and then you can just swipe back to the video when it’s ready to play,” explained Rechis. “You can also pinch on a video to watch it fullscreen.”

Pinching can also be used on tweets in order to view details about an author and takje actions on a tweet such as reply. “Put two fingers together and pull down on a Tweet to peek at the replies, showing the entire conversation leading to that Tweet,” the blog noted.