On our iPhones and iPads, we run Twitter clients. Be it Twitter, Twitterrific, Osfoora or some beta app no one knows about, many of us rely on these standalone apps to share links, thoughts and comments on Twitter. We do the same for Facebook (even if there’s no official app for iPad, third party clients are well known in the App Store), LinkedIn and other social networks. The problem: some would like to have the possibility to forward some status updates to other social networks they’re subscribed to (and likely have some friends on) without having to copy the message every single time in a new app. A few people I know use hashtags on Twitter to beam a tweet to Facebook or Google Buzz, but I don’t like the option. Next time I want to share the same message on Twitter and Facebook, what should I use?

Update is a neat $0.99 utility for iPhone which lets you do one thing: write down a status update and choose the social networks you want to send it to. Everything happens in one screen. That’s it. Once you’ve authorized the supported services (Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, LinkedIn and Hyves) in the settings, you’ll get a simple on/off menu in the compose window to choose the active services. Type, and share. You can tell the app to grab your location data or shrink URLs contained in the message. You can’t attach pictures, but I guess this is one of the non-features that make Update a great app: it’s simple and focused on text messages. If you need more, go download a dedicated client.

I like the developers’ approach with Update. It’s available at $0.99 in the App Store, and even if it’s not the app for everyone I surely appreciate its simplicity. Recommended.