Summizer: Twitter search made easy on the iPhone

Hidden on Twitter amongst the chatter about today’s lunch menu and the best spots for happy hour lays a mound of up-to-the-minute user generated commentary on just about any major topic. While Twitter Search helps you wade through this endless torrent of tweets from within the browser, Mustache Inc‘s iPhone application Summizer aims to squeeze that functionality into a package more friendly with on-the-go use.

Once you’ve punched in the topic of interest, Summizer uses the Twitter Search API to dig through the database for related tweets. If you’ve got a topic that you search for more often, you can save that search for later use for the sake of sparing your thumbs. Summizer also automatically pulls down the latest trending topics from Twitter, giving you a quick and easy way to see what’s on the collective mind at any given moment. It’s currently focused solely on searching and trend watching, so it doesn’t offer any means of logging in, tweeting, or following users.

While the application currently sits at version 1.0, an update was submitted for Apple’s approval just last night. Version 1.1 introduces automatic updates, link viewing without leaving the application, and the ability to view more tweets from any user you come across. I’ve been playing with the update throughout the evening, and everything seems to work well.

At $4.99, the price may be a bit steep for the general Twitterer. However, if work, research, or just plain old addiction have you digging through Twitter regularly, the time you’ll save with the native interface and saved search features might make it plenty worth the cost of admission. Personally, I’d love to see Mustache Inc. partner up with the folks behind Twinkle (Tapulous) or Twitterific (The Iconfactory) to get this functionality integrated into one of the popular iPhone Twitter posting/following applications.

Check it out in the App Store >>