Loren Brichter, the creator of first Tweetie and then Twitter for iPhone, has just left the company.

Brichter has been a Mac developer for years, creating what was then the most popular Twitter app for iPhone, Tweetie, in 2008 with his company Atebits.

In April 2010 Twitter acquired Atebits as well as the Tweetie app. Loren joined the Twitter team to help transition Tweetie to become Twitter for iPhone, as well as Twitter’s other iPhone, iPad and Mac apps.

As with most Twitter-related announcements, Brichter’s departure was made public by a tweet from his account:

There’s no word out about why Brichter left the company just a year and a half after bringing his app to Twitter, but it looks like he hasn’t jumped ship for anything specific. He is pretty clear in his tweet that he’s going to “figure out what’s next,” which could mean focusing on developing non-Twitter apps for Mac, or something else entirely.

For users of the Twitter for iPhone app, don’t worry about any drastic changes. Twitter’s engineering team is still there, hard at work behind the scenes. Still, it does likely mean you won’t see any massive or innovative improvements until Twitter brings on another Mac expert to spearhead the next generation of Twitter apps for iOS.

(Image courtesy of William Hook via Flickr)