Twitter arrives on the iPad

Twitter’s launched an iPad app that’s got everybody that’s played with it very excited.

It’s been completely optimized for the tablet, with its larger screen and touch interface and is designed to allow fast and easy navigation between tweets, web pages and other media.

“Tapping on a tweet opens a pane to the right. Depending on the content in that tweet, you’ll see a video or photo, or maybe a news story, or perhaps another tweet,” says Leland Rechis on the company blog.

“You can continue tapping on tweets, opening new panes, and getting new content as long as you’d like to. And it’s really easy to move between panes by swiping to the right or left.”

It makes full use of the iPad’s gesture interface, allowing users to pinch on a tweet to quickly view details about the author, reply or retweet. Putting two fingers together and pulling down on a tweet shows the entire conversation leading up to it.

Tapping a video link or opening a web page with an embedded video allows it to be played inline, and pinching on a video brings it up fullscreen. Lechis points out that users can continue to browse through their timeline while a video is loading.

There isn’t even any need to log in.

“You don’t even need to sign up to get started with Twitter for iPad,” says Rechis. “We’ve selected great Twitter accounts that you can see in various categories, such as art and design, sports and news. You can also search, view trends, and find breaking news.”

Twitter for iPad is available free from the App Store.