Twitter has released new versions of its popular iPhone and Android apps, which include several major updates, including expandable tweets, Twitter events, the new Twitter search and, for the first time, push notifications.

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I know lots of folks have been wanting this for a while – push notifications are here for Twitter For iPhone.

Whenever an account that you follow mentions you, you’ll immediately receive a notification. You’ll know who is talking to or about you on Twitter, and you’ll be able to continue the conversation in real-time. Notifications for @mentions will initially be available on SMS and on the latest version of Twitter for iPhone, which you can download today from the App Store.

In addition to @mentions, we’re also bringing push notifications for Messages to Twitter for iPhone, as we’ve already done with SMS and Twitter for Blackberry. We’re working hard to introduce this feature to Twitter for Android and Twitter for Windows Phone soon.

To turn on SMS notifications, go to twitter.com/devices and check the boxes under “Text message notifications”. You can change your notifications settings at any time. For example, text “set mentions all’ to turn on notifications for @mentions from everyone, rather than just those whom you follow, and ‘set mentions off’ to turn off @mentions notifications.

This isn’t an important update for me and unless you can configure them on a per-user basis I’ll never have push notifications on – it’s just too much, especially on some days when I can get hundreds of mentions, and I’m on and checking Twitter enough to not need a prompt, even when I’m out and about. God only knows what it must be like if you have millions of followers – your iPhone would never stop.

(Source: Twitter blog.)