The official Digg app for the iPhone / iPod Touch became available on Wednesday in many parts of the world, but was not available in the US until approx. 11pm east coast time. It has been near half a year since Kevin Rose first publicly mentioned a Digg app for the iPhone. Presumably, the reason for the slowness in releasing the app is because Digg has been targeting their resources on a complete overhaul of the Digg.com website, focusing more on real-time information, images and “social media,” to compete with the likes of Twitter and Facebook.

As part of the overall GUI & UX upgrade for Digg.com the mobile arena will be a huge focus, hence the iPhone app, and soon enough a Digg app for Android. Until today, when using my mobile iDevice to read articles and comments on Digg, I would either use the speedy yet feature-deprived mobile website (m.digg.com) or “Shovel Pro” the best current iPhone app for interacting with Digg. Shovel, and any other app feeding off Digg’s content currently available for the iPhone including the new native Digg app, are missing one huge feature—the ability to submit a comment. In fact, Shovel has already built in the ability to post a comment on Digg, only to wait for Digg to open up their API to allow commenting. If the new native Digg app allowed commenting, and Digg did not open up their API to others, then Shovel might as well start digging its own grave! However it seems odd that Digg’s own iPhone app does not allow comments at this time. On Digg, at least in its current iteration, the comments are both a huge part of the content, and the only part of Digg’s content that is original.

This official Digg app was heavily anticipated by many. I consider myself more of a Digg-type than a Facebook-type or a Tweeter. Tweeting is fast, but the content is bound by far too many limitations and contains vastly too much noise. Facebook is a phenomena in and of itself—and I do not completely understand why people find it so endearing, except as a vehicle for self-promotion for businesses and boasting for individuals. The day the Digg iPhone app launched (in Europe and Canada), I must have conducted over a dozen searches at the iTunes App Store throughout the day waiting for the app to become available in the USA. I even tried to create a new user account for the Canadian iTunes Store, but I stopped when they asked me for an address in Canada. So the wait continued.

I use Digg as my “one-stop-shop” for getting my daily tech-fix. Their mash-up of all available hi-quality content, usually in the form of  blogs, website articles, and images, seems more complete than any of the alternatives. I see the current Digg as a place for more technical types and Facebook and Twitter for the larger group of the less tech-savvy masses. Market forces dictate that Digg would eventually need to reach out to that larger number of general (non-technical) gadget users that gravitate to the interactive experiences that Twitter and Facebook provide. This app makes sharing an article to Twitter and Facebook more easy—an integration into “social media”  that is a hint of the coming major changes to the Digg website itself.

Some comments at the Canadian iTunes App Store were less than favorable. Maybe Digg developers are quickly and quietly fixing the app before the huge US release —using Canadians and Europeans as unofficial beta-testers was a smart idea. This must be why the app is not available to the people in the US, I told myself. Is there some sort of cat-and-mouse game going on between Apple and the folks at Digg? It does seem the majority of the Digg community is anti-Apple, Inc. But the apparent disrespect of Apple may simply be representing raw percentages, and nothing else, as Apple is just one company in a sea of technology. Yes, I rambled-on in my mind as I waited of the US debut of the official Digg app.

Digg  finally became available for people in the US.  At about 8pm on the west coast, the app was released to US iTunes app store customers.

Some of the basic features of the Digg app for the iPhone include:

• Browse lists of the top stories in 24 hours, recently popular stories, and upcoming stories with rising interest
• Preview any story in a list by clicking the arrow next to each item in the list, which will reveal the story description, source, thumbnail, date, and submitter
• Save any story you’re interested in to a list for easy access later
• View websites in an integrated browser, with options to Digg, bury, save, and share the story in-line
• Read through and vote on the comments for any story
• Search for any story on Digg and sort results by date, Digg count, or relevance
• Easily share stories with your friends via Facebook, Twitter, or email
• Best of all, login to link the app to your digg.com account and easily Digg or bury both comments and stories

There are two obvious omissions in the initial offering of this app: 1. No ability to post comments. 2. No landscape view. Even the app Shovel and the Digg mobile website currently has landscape mode. I presumed the ability to leave comments was going to be the big differentiator between this native Digg app and all others. However, no ability to comment has me wondering what the heck is going on here. Maybe Kevin Rose does not want to see a heavy influx of Apple aficionados, with their Jobsian technobabble, littering up the certain technological “flavor” the comments at Digg tend to come in …?

Also, many pixels have been sacrificed to advertising space in this Digg app—currently in the form of a hefty 300×50 pixel self-promo . Oh well, the app is free, and someone has to make some coin, right?

Wait, that large ad space would be a great area and size for submitting comments.

Similar to many first attempts at an iPhone app, this Digg app is already primed for an upgrade. As the Digg.com website undergoes its renovations, expect updates to their mobile apps to reflect these changes. Right now, the Digg-friendly app Shovel lives on my iPod Touch homescreen. Will the landscape-less and comment-less native Digg app replace it? Not until Digg’s app has landscape mode and the ability to post comments.

I wonder what Digg’s iPad app, if they develop one, will be like?