I'm pleased to announce a major upgrade of my iOS app to help manage Twitter accounts, Tweeps. Version 3 has been rewritten to use iOS 5's built-in Twitter accounts, so you no longer need to authenticate them in Tweeps.

It also adds a feature that version 1 had, but I had to remove in version 2 — the ability to edit avatar images. You can take a photo with the camera, choose a picture from your photo library, or paste an image from a web page or other app, and set it as the avatar for your Twitter account.

I also replaced the brown color scheme with the standard iOS theme. I didn't really like the brown. The idea was to match the nest theme of the icon, but brown isn't the most attractive color.

Tweeps 3 also supports retina graphics on the new iPad, the sidebar is always visible for easier access, and other improvements.

Tweeps 3 requires iOS 5 or later, and is universal, so works natively on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

I'll leave Tweeps free for today, but tomorrow will increase the price. I'm thinking of an experiment: set the price at $9.99 tomorrow, then decrease it by a dollar each week, to a final price of $0.99. A bit of the reverse of a more traditional technique of starting cheap and increasing the price over time. We'll see how it goes.

Update: Thanks to everyone who downloaded it while free; please leave a review. And thanks to everyone who buys it now; your purchases help fund the development work!

Learn more about Tweeps: