Will Twitter For iPad Kill Off Tweet Developers?
After releasing an official iPhone app in May, the folks at Twitter HG have unveiled an iPad app that may strike fear in the hearts of third party tweet developers.
Twitter for iPad takes advantage of the iPad’s fluid touch interface, letting you move lots of information around smoothly and quickly – without needing to open and close windows or click buttons. […]
When you tap a video link or open a web page with an embedded video, you can play that video inline. And, let’s be honest, video is great but sometimes it can take some time to load. 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. You can also pinch on a video to watch it fullscreen. [sic] (Official Twitter Blog)
Although the official iPad is receiving glowing reviews from around the twittersphere (not to mention the blogosphere as well), Twitter’s iPad app will probably not cause a mass extinction of the “few” tweet iPad apps in the app store.
Third party developers will probably respond to Twitter’s official presence by integrating other social networks, a trend we have seen on the iPhone as well as other smartphones.
While Twitter’s official presence will place some iPad tweet apps on the endangered species list, as long as tweet developers are able to out-innovate Twitter, then they should be able to fend off their own demise.
