Twitter for Zune HD, hands-on

After a brief heads-up from Microsoft yesterday, the official Twitter app for Zune HD has arrived.

I've spent only a few minutes with the app, but I feel declaring it as a welcome addition to the slowly growing roster of free apps for the Zune HD.

Will it blow your mind? Probably not. But as an officially sanctioned Twitter-branded app, users are given a very familiar, clean, and intuitive way to read and create tweets.

Power users will probably be a little bummed there isn't a landscape keyboard option or much at all in the way of settings. That said, this is only version 1.0, so don't count out the possibility of updates in the not-too-distant future.

Probably the coolest little surprise is a button that will automatically populate your tweet with the currently playing song's title and artist info. It's not quite as convenient as a Blip.fm link, but it gives you a quick way to announce your love of Afrika Bambaataa without mangling the spelling.

Another detail worth mentioning--there are no in-app ads. I guess since the Twitter app falls under the "utility" category of apps, Microsoft isn't bundling in the banner ads that plague their games. I imagine it'll be the same case for the forthcoming Facebook app, should it ever see the light of day.

To take a closer look at some of the features, check out the photo gallery.