Twitter for iPad finally gets an update

This morning, Twitter finally unveiled their new iPad app:

Today you can download the new Twitter for iPad. We’ve rebuilt the app from the ground up to make it fast, beautiful and easy to use. Twitter for iPad brings you closer to what’s happening all over the world, and makes it easy to keep up with the news you need to read, the photos you want to see and the people you follow.

It is indeed fast, beautiful, and easy to use. There are a ton of great custom UI decisions here. I actually like the expanded view that appears whenever I tap on a tweet. If there’s a link in a tweet, the view expands the view to the browser. It’s a really nice touch.

There are still a couple of problems. Why won’t Twitter add some type of syncing support? If you have apps on various devices, wouldn’t you assume that most people would want to sync their timelines?

Plus, I wish there would be more consistency between the iPad and iPhone apps. The iPhone app doesn’t share a similar extended tweet view. Instead of expanding in the timeline, it slides over to a new window. That makes it feel a bit dated compared to the iPad’s new hotness.

Still, the new iPad is a huge improvement, as I really hated the last version. It was great to look at, but over time the sliding panes were a huge hassle for me. If Twitter actually goes forth and kills third party development (I don’t think it will), I could see myself using this app.