Twitter for BlackBerry

 Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones is impressive and practical, but not without drawbacks

I've been using the beta version of Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones for a few days now and it's impressive. Not in an OTT kind of way but its convenient and practical. I don't tweet a lot but using the app on the Berry has made me a lot more active than I would have been without it.

 The app is at a ‘closed beta' stage at present which means that you need to be invited to try it out, but ITP.net is giving away 10 codes to the Twitter enthusiasts if you'd like to get in there first - more about that below. But you can also head to the www.blackberry.com/twitter and sign up to receive a notification when Twitter for BlackBerry gets to the open public beta stage.

Now I know there are other third-party Twitter apps for BlackBerry smartphones already available but this one is straight from the source, which is already a plus, with Twitter being integrated into the BlackBerry platform. Once it's downloaded and you enter your login creds, it takes barely a minute to set up. You're then greeted with the blue and white homepage which includes navigation icons right at the top for ‘home', @mentions, user profile, direct messages, find people, topic search and trending topics as well.

The first thing I tried was the search, where I threw in random ‘Garden' and ‘Wall' queries with success - public tweets on that topic were displayed...but I didn't care about gardens or walls and I moved on to more interesting things with the satisfaction that it worked.

Push functions great (as expected) and you can choose how often to update, but you will invariably end up having to scroll down down down because of the screen size that just about fits two small tweets.

You're also notified with that all-familiar life-changing red light whenever any of your followers tweet something new. This default setting can get really annoying if you have a lot of people on your list but it's easy to just get into Settings and change that. It's also a good idea while you're in there to specify that you'd like to keep your direct messages separate from regular tweets!

A definite plus of the new app is the Send/Share BlackBerry menu and camera integration. This means that if you're browsing a page or taking a photo that you'd like to post, you can choose to share it on Twitter with the click of your little trackball. The app automatically shortens URLs for you and enters it in a new tweet. Another interesting feature is the ‘View Conversation' option that organises the public conversation between two Twitter users so you haven't missed out on the flow.

So could it be the BEST Twitter app for BlackBerry smartphones EVER!? I think it's really good but probably not quite ready for that title yet. Since it's still in beta, there's time to make improvements so I'll be keen to see the final release and would definitely use it over other contenders.

But enough about me and my opinion - what's yours? ITP.net has ten closed beta codes for the app to give away and all you need to do is answer the easy question below by replying to the post. Correct answers will be entered into a draw and I'll post the winners and get in touch with the lucky ten (selected randomly - bits of paper and deft fingers style) on March 15th. To keep things fair, usual rules like non-transfer of prize and ITP family apply but I'm also limiting this only to Twitter users based in the Middle East.