One of the most amazing things about Twitter has always been the microblogging platform's refusal to get directly involved with the ways in which people use it. Rather than create features to shape how users use the Twitter platform (like some other major social networks we won't name here), Twitter has, since its inception, instead preferred to take a "wait and see" approach to development, letting the ways that users use the platform shape the features that they develop. It's a bottom-up approach to social networking design that's relatively unheard of in the industry, and in many ways, it has been and remains a refreshing change.

The Chinese have a proverb the goes something like this: you need a light touch when you're frying a very small fish. In the context of Twitter, we're the little fishes, and Twitter's always used a very light touch when...well, frying us. But there's such a thing as not exerting enough control, and when it comes to the iPhone, Twitter's been guilty of that. For years, users who want to use Twitter on the iPhone have been forced to download third-party applications, since Twitter had never actually developed an iPhone app of their own.

When Twitter announced last month that they'd acquired the popular iPhone Twitter client Tweetie (and the company that created it, Atebits), smart users started to suspect that Twitter was ready to change their stance on an iPhone application. That change finally came last week when Twitter announced that they had created their own, branded iPhone application, chock full of awesome features and featuring a sleek, snazzy interface that puts a lot of other iPhone Twitter clients to shame. There are a few things about the new Twitter iPhone client that stand out:

1. You don't need a Twitter account to use it.

Unlike other third-party developers, Twitter's finally figured out that you don't need to actually be on Twitter to find something worthwhile in it. Plenty of people use Twitter simply to watch and listen, and neither of those things requires a Twitter account. Twitter's new iPhone client allows anyone to use Twitter, even if they're not actually a registered user. With the new Twitter iPhone client, anyone can browse trends (something many other clients don't let users do at all), find popular Twitter users, and read tweets in the public timeline - immediately after downloading. In Twitter's own words, "discovery and consumption of interesting, relevant information is a central focus."

2. The Twitter iPhone App is Free.

Until now, the best Twitter features often required a paid application - although you could always get a barebones application for free (or one that was supported by irritating ads), if you really wanted to get the full Twitter experience, you had to shell out as much as $5.00 - a hefty price to use a social network that's completely free to all. Twitter's shown that they're not interested in monetizing the network by taking cash out of users pockets and they've leveraged their existing development team to create a high-quality App that's free to all.

3. The Twitter iPhone App Will Get the Best, Newest Features.

Whenever Twitter creates new features, there's a sometimes substantial delay between the inception of the new feature and the moment when third-party applications finally see an update that supports it. In some cases, new features are never implemented on Twitter clients - for instance, Twitter lists still aren't utilized by many third-party applications. Twitter's iPhone client will have an inside track on new features so that the moment they're launched across the network, iPhone users will get an update that will support them.

Overall, the Twitter iPhone app is fantastic, and it's a sign that Twitter finally "gets it" - that the hands-off approach is a fantastic way to let a social network grow organically, but when it comes to actually giving users the tools to use the network, they need to take a stronger hand. Let's just hope the trend continues.