Apple iPhones to get deep Twitter integration

Twitter will soon be deeply integrated into Apple's upcoming iOS 5 mobile operating system, the firm said at its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday.

The integration will allow iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users to log-in to Twitter with a single sign-on and tweet photos, maps, videos and web sites from their mobile devices.

Apple users currently have a number of options to share a photo, such as by setting it as 'wallpaper' or emailing it to a contact. The Tweet button will now upload the photo directly to a Twitter account.

Twitter announced the partnership in its company blog. "Building Twitter into iOS 5 creates the easiest way to share everything that's happening in your world. Take a picture, tap 'Tweet'. Tweeting has never been simpler," said the firm.

The Apple integration conveniently coincides with the new version of Twitter Search, which started rolling out last week and displays photos and videos in users' search results.

Twitter said at the time that it will release a feature over the next few weeks that allows users to attach photos to tweets from Twitter.com.

The news of the Apple and Twitter partnership is not likely to be welcomed by Facebook. For some reason Apple chose to ignore the most popular social network in the world when choosing a social partner for its latest operating system.

Apple could just have easily allowed its users to upload photos into Facebook directly from its camera application.

07 Jun 2011