This morning, Twitter announced a new Periscope integration with the official Twitter app on iOS: starting today, users will be able to start watching Periscope live streams directly from the Twitter app without having to jump to Periscope.

From the Periscope blog:

Since launch, there have been over 100 million broadcasts created on Periscope. Whenever a broadcast is shared on Twitter, you tap the link to open the Periscope app. Today, we’re replacing those links with the broadcast itself, autoplaying right within the Tweet. And when you tap the video, it goes full-screen and shows Periscope comments and hearts from other viewers. You don’t need the Periscope app or even a Periscope account.

And here’s Casey Newton, writing about the new integration at The Verge:

In-line Periscopes are designed to look like a hybrid between the two platforms. “This brings the Periscope format to people who have never experienced Periscope, or don’t know what Periscope is,” says Aaron Wasserman, a Periscope engineer. Tap a video in the stream and it will expand and begin to play sound. You can view the comments and hearts inside a broadcast on Twitter, but if you want to comment or send hearts yourself you’ll have to tap a button to open it inside Periscope.

At the same time, you can interact with the broadcasts the same way you can with other tweets: liking them, retweeting them, or replying to them. That last one is important: Periscope broadcasts are limited to 100 commenters; Twitter replies mean that big broadcasters are likely to hear directly from more viewers.

According to Periscope, they’re also considering an option to store some streams permanently for preservation purposes. The Twitter timeline keeps gaining media previews and integrations that aren’t available in other clients – I think native Periscope playback for streams makes a lot of sense.