14 DAY TRIAL // Apple came out swinging at this year's WWDC, there were no new devices, but iOS 5 and especially the new iCloud service were enough to get Apple fans all giddy about what's headed their way. One interesting feature, if you can call it that, in the upcoming iOS 5 is the deep Twitter integration.
Twitter is now part of the operating system itself, you can tweet from several of the built-in apps, you only need to sign in only once and third-party developers can leverage the functionality and add Twitter features to their apps.
"We're working with Apple to make sharing on Twitter even easier: Twitter is built right into iOS 5, coming soon to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices worldwide," Twitter announced.
"This means that you’ll be able to sign in to your Twitter account once and then tweet with a single tap from Twitter-enabled apps, including Apple’s apps—Camera, Photos, Safari, Contacts, YouTube, and Maps," it explained.
"And developers of all of your favorite apps can easily take advantage of the single sign-on capability, letting you tweet directly from their apps too," it added.
Built-in Twitter was just one of the many things Apple unveiled, but it's an interesting feature since it integrates a web service at a very low level in the operating system, essentially becoming a 'feature' of iOS 5.
And since it is built-in, it also benefits from the native look and feel, Twitter features won't feel tacked-on. And for Twitter, it's a great win, sure it's great for Apple to be able to tout this to the detriment of its mobile competitors, but the microblogging service could benefit from the close to 200 million people running iOS-powered devices right now.
It does mark a departure, yet again, from Twitter's stated desire to have an unified look and feel of the service and apps, when it was signaling to third-party developers that they should not be building Twitter clients anymore.