A much craved-for feature by mobile users, microblogging platform Twitter has finally taken notice and added push notifications for mentions to your username (dubbed @mentions) in its iPhone and iPad apps, as well as through SMS.

Here’s how it works: whenever someone you follow mentions you with your username, Twitter’s iPhone and iPad apps will open up with a push notification. Alternatively, if you’re not an iPhone user, you can turn on text message notifications under “Devices” in Twitter’s settings to have an SMS sent to you instead.

Additionally, notifications on the iPhone can also be enabled for direct messages sent to you, as they’ve been previously with SMS and Twitter’s Blackberry application, and set to show @mentions from everyone rather than just from the people you follow (though if you’re planning to do this through SMS, take caution as standard data rates apply.)

Previously, users who’ve wanted push notifications have had to use alternatives such as Boxcar, an app for the iOS platform that enables push notifications for numerous services online.

Twitter also plans to make the feature available for its Android and Windows Phone apps in the near future.