UberTwitter beta hits the iPhone

After proving a hit on the BlackBerry, mobile Twitter app UberTwitter is now trying to make a name for itself on the iPhone.

Hitting iTunes on Monday, the free beta release of UberTwitter is designed to give iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch users full access to their Twitter accounts from their mobile devices. You can see the tweets you follow, post your own tweets, search for tweets, and manage your Twitter account.

The app offers a couple of especially useful options. Tapping on a tweet opens it and any linked content in one single Live Preview window, sparing you from having to bounce back and forth between different windows.

From Live Preview, you can easily jump from one tweet to the next with a single tap and double tap a tweet to open the profile page of its author. You can also quickly retweet, e-mail, or reply to a tweet from this one window.

Holding your device horizontally to jump into landscape mode splits the screen in half, with the tweet on the left and its linked content on the right.

Otherwise, UberTwitter works similarly to other Twitter apps. With one tap, I could geo-tag my tweets and include a link to a picture or video. The search feature performed as expected, letting me hunt for both names and topics. I also had full access to my profile where I could change my name, bio, and picture.

I did find a couple of issues with the beta. The font size was too small for my eyes and no way to adjust it. For some reason, the app didn't display the lists that I follow. And unlike other free Twitter apps I've tried, UberTwitter displays ads at the bottom of the screen, which of course pays the bills but can be distracting.

Released about a year ago for the BlackBerry, UberTwitter has proven popular among the several Twitter apps for RIM customers. In trying to carve out a chunk of the iPhone market, UberTwitter will now compete with a host of other Twitter apps, among them the official Twitter app, TweetDeck, and Twitterific.

At this point, I wouldn't give up the official Twitter app to use UberTwitter. But with a few refinements and hopefully an inexpensive ad-less version, UberTwitter could easily find a spot on my home screen.