After many months of waiting it looks like Twitter for iPhone will finally have a feature iOS users have been begging for without having to rely upon a third party service.
When you’re out and about, your phone probably isn’t always in front of you. It might be in your pocket or purse or on a table – perhaps with the screen off. We want to make sure you see important Tweets even when you’re not looking at Twitter at the moment. To help with that, today we’re launching push notifications for @mentions.
Whenever an account that you follow mentions you, you’ll immediately receive a notification. You’ll know who is talking to or about you on Twitter, and you’ll be able to continue the conversation in real-time. Notifications for @mentions will initially be available on SMS and on the latest version of Twitter for iPhone, which you can download today from the App Store. (Official Twitter Blog)
This feature will work for both direct messages as well standard mentions, although there is no word on whether Twitter will also send push notifications for retweets as well.
Previously users had to use a service like Boxcar in order to receive notifications, or tweet from a third party app like Echofon or Simply Tweet instead.
Twitter is promising to bring SMS as well as push notifications for fans using Android or Windows Phone 7 as well.
As far as Blackberry users go, they will have to reach out to RIM for support (if they do not have this feature already) as Twitter does not officially support Blackberry devices (despite the “officialness” of the name).
