Twitter to have systemwide integration in iOS 5?

TechCrunch reports that Twitter is on the verge of launching its own photo-sharing service in direct competition with existing services like TwitPic and yFrog. The big news for iOS device users is this service might have system-level integration in iOS 5. According to TechCrunch, the site has heard from several sources that "Apple's new iOS 5 will come with an option to share images to Twitter baked into the OS. This would be similar to the way you can currently share videos on YouTube with one click in iOS. Obviously, a user would have to enable this feature by logging in with their Twitter credentials in iOS. There would then be a 'Send to Twitter' option for pictures stored on your device."

John Gruber of Daring Fireball thinks the service, if it does come to fruition, may not be restricted to just photo sharing. "Imagine what else the system could provide if your Twitter account was a system-level service," he muses. Indeed, after installing Twitter for Mac in Mac OS X, there's a right-click option to tweet any hyperlink from Safari; if Twitter sharing is going to be baked into iOS 5, this seems like an easily-implemented feature. More out in left field, integrating Twitter into iOS Contacts could also allow users to post tweets to other users directly from within apps like Messages, thus allowing conversations begun via SMS to divert to Twitter and spare users from per-text carrier charges.

There's obviously been no confirmation from Apple that Twitter will be integrated in iOS 5, and TechCrunch hasn't heard about similar functionality for services like Facebook or Flickr. With WWDC and iOS 5's unveiling only a week away, we'll know one way or the other very soon.