One of the most popular iPhone twitter clients, the ad-supported Twitterfon, has recently introduced a Pro and paid version of the app.  Twitterfon Pro has all the features of Twitterfon that made it popular minus the ads and with a few bonus features.

Hit the read link for a thorough review of what could be the best Twitter app for the iPhone.

As a long time user of Twitterfon, I was always a little dissatisfied with the ad-supported nature of the app. Don’t get me wrong, ad-supported versions are a great idea and are likely to earn the app developers more money than a paid app if their app is popular and used a lot. For me however if an app makes it into my most used section of my iPhone, something that’s used multiple times a day, I’d rather pay for the app and remove the need for adverts.

Twitterfon Pro provides a simple, very iPhone like user interface, which resembles the iTunes and iPod apps with a row of icons at the bottom of the screen for switching display modes. As you’d expect you Friends, Mentions (Replies to those original Twitter users), Direct Messages, Favourites and Search. Friends provides you with your personalised friends stream in an easily readable fashion. Taping on links takes you to an in-app browser that allows you to export the link to Safari, taping on the tweet takes you a screen with the ability to reply, send a DM or retweet the message as well as access to the users timeline. Taping on the user from there takes you to an overview of the users profile showing followers, following, updates, favourites and allowing you to follow, unfollow or if you have a personal hatred, block them. If you simply want to reply to the tweet you can tap the tweeters avatar and it opens up the tweet writing dialogue with the usual reply features.

Mentions just displays your @messages in which people have tweeted your user name, from here all the options that exist in the Friends time line are available which carries over the Messages screen displaying only DMs. The Favourites pane acts as expected displaying any tweets you’ve marked as favourite, a feature I can’t say I’ve ever used on Twitter, but it’s there if you need it.

The final pane on the right is a Search screen. From here you can search for all manner of things on twitter. Using your current location you can search for tweets made around a set radius 1-500Km or search for a keyword. If you regularly search for something you’ll be pleased to know there’s a history of searches built into the app to speed up previously used searches. Should you be interested in tracking trending topics the most popularly tweeted topics are available at the touch of the top right hand overlapping speech bubble button, which then allows you to instantly see all the latest tweets associated with that keyword.

Finally, if you’re a tweeter as much as a follower you’ll be pleased to know that the tweet dialogue box is well thought out and has all the features you’d expect from a twitter client. Simply type your 140 characters, tag the tweet with a location, tweet a picture from your library or take one with or without text and handily an address book type function for @replies. Another nice feature is that if you’re interrupted mid-tweet by some one calling, texting or emailing you can leave the app and the tweet is automatically saved for more tweeting later. Should you decide you don’t want to send the tweet on the next load simply hit the trash button to bin the tweet and start again. Applications on phones should all have save state feature because you never know when you’re going to be rudely interrupted, something that some software developers seem to neglect. Twitterfon also includes the ability to tweet a link directly from mobile Safari using a javascript bookmark using Bit.ly as a url compressor. You can even take advantage of the Bit.ly tracking features using you login for Bit.ly right in Twitterfon Pro itself.

The main standout features for Twitterfon Pro over the ad-supported Twitterfon include the ability to manage more than one Twitter account right from the app, something that would be handy for anyone with personal and company accounts. Themes are also included which change the colour scheme of the application between silver, plain, blue and black. The top title bar however cycles colours depending which pane you have open with Friends being the default theme colour and cycling through dark green, a browny red, plum and back to default for the search pane. Adding to the login system for Bit.ly in the Twitterfon Pro app, Instapaper integration is also supported for those that use the note and clipping service. Shake to reload, something that the Facebook iPhone app has used for a while now, is also available in the Pro version. The landscape keyboard is also available in the Pro app, something that for 140 characters I don’t see as much of a benefit, but then again I’m one of those people who actually likes the iPhone keyboard especially in the protrait orientation.

Overall Twitterfon is an excellent, simple, fast and iPhone like Twitter client that everyone should try. If you’re not always on wifi when you load up your tweets, Twitterfon loads up new tweets in my testing faster than most of the other popular clients on the iPhone. If you’re not enamoured with the adverts brandished across the top of the app or you want to make use of more than one Twitter account then Twitterfon Pro makes a fine addition to your iPhone with the added bonus of themes if you fancy a change.

The free ad-supported Twitterfon and Twitterfon Pro, $4.99 (£2.99), are available right now in the App Store . See below for a load of screenshot illustrating the different panes and colour themes.