Hot on the heels of Flipboard for iPhone and Google Currents, social news reader Zite released an iPhone version of its app Friday.
Zite, which launched on the iPad in March, is a smart magazine that learns what you like to read, notes how long you spend reading it, and delivers more stories along those lines. Its storied reputation on the iPad appears to have preceded it on the iPhone. "We had more than a thousand downloads in the first hour -- before we were even searchable in the app store," Zite CEO Mark Johnson told Mashable.
CNN purchased Zite back in August. Since then, the personalized news competition has only become stronger, with Yahoo launching its iPad app Livestand and Google aggressively going after the space.
The iPhone version of Zite links up to the iPad version. iPad users can create an account with Zite -- though it isn't necessary to use it -- and logging in with that account will showcase the kind of news that Zite has already learned you like.
Zite can hook into Twitter, Google Reader and a new source -- Read it Later -- for populating and suggesting stories.
Zite for iPhone [iTunes link] also lets users share their articles across social networks, as well as reading platforms like Instapaper and bookmarking services like Pinboard.