Twitter has announced a new application for the Apple Mac App Store. Tweets appear in real-time (through the streaming API). The Twitter Mac App Store app automatically shortens URLs and there are a lot of keyboard shortcuts. The Twitter Mac application is three times faster than the app used to be known as Tweetie For Mac. Twetie for Mac was a desktop application created by atebits developer Loren Brichter. Loren put together the new Mac app during the first Hack Week that the company had this past October. [Twitter Blog]

The Twitter application for the iPhone App Store is now available for download. The best part is that it is free. It has been about a month since Twitter acquired the Tweetie iPhone application company. Some of the new features include the ability to browse Twitter without the requirement of having an account. The Suggested User List is connected to the app now too. Loren Brichter created the original Tweetie app. [iTunes Link]

Twitter has acquired Atebits, the maker of iPhone application Tweetie. Atebits also makes an app for Mac computers. The acquisition price is unknown. This strategic move complements Twitter’s announcement from Friday that they have developed a BlackBerry Twitter app. Twitter’s acquisition of Atebits makes it the third acquisition that the company has made. The first was search engine Summize and the second was location-based services company Mixer Labs.

Atebits was started by Loren Brichter, a software engineer that used to work for Apple on the iPhone. The Tweetie app sells for $2.99 and is the most popular mobile Twitter application. Twitter will take Tweetie and offer it for free. The new app will be called Twitter for iPhone. [Twitter Blog]