Twitter Announces Official Blackberry App, Gets a Little More Evil

Lately, there have been rumblings that much-beloved Twitter might start to turn a little evil and begin to compete with the huge economy of third-party apps that has sprung up around the service.

Well, it looks like those rumors are at least partly true, as today Twitter announced an official Blackberry client. Here’s a list of the app’s features:

• Real-time BlackBerry push of Twitter direct messages
• Camera and photo gallery integration
• Browser integration for Tweeting links
• Customizable interface for changing fonts, hiding tool bars, etc.
• Inbox integration so you can read your Twitter direct messages along side your email and text messages
• @integration so that if you receive an email or text message which includes an @username, it is linked to the Twitter app profile page
• Twitter lists integration
• Notification of @mentions
• Search for users, content, and trending topics
• Localized for French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Brazilian Portuguese

Sounds pretty impressive and robust.

But just through sheer name-recognition alone, it seems likely that most people will ditch third-party apps like TwitterBerry in favor of this one, especially if they are just casual users unfamiliar with the differences between apps.

One wonders if it’s just a matter of time until Twitter releases a desktop client or official iPhone app – and sends Tweetdeck, Tweetie and others to early graves. It’d be much preferable if Twitter remain everyone’s favorite ‘startup’ and let all those third-party developers continue to thrive.

[via: SAI]