What are the top Twitter apps on the iPhone? It’s hard to say because the iTunes store doesn’t have a Twitter category (Twitter apps are lumped in under “Social Networking). But AppsFire, the iPhone app sharing service, might have an answer—at least for the early adopter crowd who tend to use AppsFire (i.e. people like you, dear reader). AppsFire looks at apps actually downloaded and kept on people’s iPhones. Based on a sample of 1,500 AppsFire members, the top ten Twitter apps on the iPhone are:

1. TweetDeck
2. Tweetie
3. Twitterific
4. TwitterFon
5. IM+
6. Twitelator Pro
7. Twitterrific Premium
8. iTwitter
9. ShoZu
10. Boxcar

Notice that 7 of the top ten Twitter apps are paid apps. The only free apps are TweetDeck (No. 1), Titterific (No. 3), and TwitterFon (No. 4).

AppsFire also collected some data on what percentage of users download Twitter apps compared to Facebook apps (see slideshow below). While it found a total of 32 different Facebook apps on user’s iPhones, compared to a whopping 102 Twitter apps, more users had a Facebook App on their device.

The No. 1 Facebook app, of course, is the official Facebook app for the iPhone, whereas Twitter does not have any official iPhone app. A full 70 percent of users in the AppsFire sample had the Facebook iPhone app, while only 63 percent had a Twitter app. So much for diversity.

The one thing AppsFire does not know, however, is which apps are actually used more often. You can help answer that by answering the poll below:

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

MySocial 24×7

Like the Firefox sidebar, the AIR app allows users to filter the view by type of data, comment or bookmark any entry, and users can also reply via Twitter.

The big selling point for the new app is an inbuilt movie/picture viewer, allowing users to view content without the need to revert to a browser window.

Hands on its definitely one of the nicest looking desktop apps in this space, content is rendered clearly and attractively, compared to say Twhirl which isn’t super pretty out of the box. The app though does lack many of the features that have made Twhirl popular, such as click support for direct messaging in Twitter, color customization, and easy access to archives and user details. In its defense it is an alpha release, and not all users will want for the extra features provided by Twhirl. Definitely worth a look if you’re a Twitter and FriendFeed user.

disclosure: Michael is an investor in Seesmic, which owns Twhirl

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.