App roundup: GTA V gets companion app, Twitter redesign coming, Google Play Books nabs single sign-on

Grand Theft Auto-loving iPhone owners can get an early taste of San Andreas thanks to a new companion app, while Twitter is said to be redesigning its own first-party title, and Google is improving functionality in Google Play Books for iOS.

GTA V comes to iOS

Ahead of the Grand Theft Auto V launch on Tuesday, Rockstar Games has released a companion app for the game on Apple's iOS platform. iFruit brings all of the snark and satire the Grand Theft Auto series is known for to iPhones and iPads, giving players a way to keep up with GTA V news and entertain themselves with other aspects of the game.

The iFruit companion app lets users create and reserve custom license plates for both Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online. When next logging on to one's Grand Theft Auto game, a player will find that all customized and upgraded materials are waiting for them in the garage.

The game also includes a mini-game involving Chop, the dog that accompanies one of the game's three protagonists throughout some of the game. Players can interact with Chop through iFruit, feeding him, petting him, taking him on walks, and so forth. iFruit interactions with Chop will make the dog more responsive to players in the console version of the game.

iFruit is available as a free download in the iTunes App Store. The 444MB app requires an iPhone, iPad, or iPod running iOS 4.3 or later.

Twitter preps iOS app redesign

Twitter is reportedly preparing a redesign of its iOS app for unveiling some time in the near future. The forthcoming version will do away with the four tabs at the bottom of the app's screen, according to AllThingsD, instead giving users the ability to swipe through different content-focused streams.

Among those streams will be the main Twitter feed, as well as another feed for interactions between users and conversations. Yet another will be dedicated entirely to photos shared on Twitter.

The new app is aimed at expanding Twitter's appeal to mainstream consumers ahead of the microblogging service's forthcoming initial public offering. Twitter will likely first bring its app up to date with iOS 7 compatibility in the days after Apple's next-gen operating system launches, with the aforementioned interface changes coming in a later update.

Google Play Books gets Single Sign-On support

Google has released an update for its Google Play Books app for iOS, bringing support for Google Single Sign-On. Now users need to authenticate only once on an iOS device in order to be automatically signed in to all installed Google apps.

The update also includes support for copying selected text, so long as a text's copyright allows such an action. It also contains a number of stability improvements.

Google Play Books version 1.6.1 is available as a free download in the App Store. The 19.1MB download requires an iPhone, iPod, or iPad running iOS 5.0 or later.