One of the big marquee features of Mountain Lion is deeply-baked Twitter integration, built right into every Mac apps. If there was any doubt about it after iOS 5, erase it from your mind: after some aborted experiments like Ping, Apple is doubling down on social networking, and the horse they’re backing isn’t Facebook… it’s Twitter.
According to the official description of Twitter integration in OS X Mountain Lion:
Tweet right from your apps. OS X Mountain Lion keeps you on top of all things Twitter. Sign in once and you’re all set to start tweeting — and you don’t have to leave the app you’re in. Tweet links and photos directly from Safari, iPhoto, or Photo Booth with the new Tweet Sheet. Tweet comments and add locations. And when someone mentions you in a tweet or sends you a direct message, you’ll get a Twitter notification right then and there.
What’s so interesting about Twitter coming to OS X is that Twitter has, up until now, flourished based upon its mobile roots. Twitter’s always been about broadcasting quick thoughts or links out-and-on-the-go, and its core premise — 140 character updates — was defined by the ability to capably fit a Tweet into the 160 character size limit of an SMS text message.
With Twitter being baked right into OS X, Apple is making Twitter shrug off its mobile roots. Not only that, Apple is signaling that it’s Twitter, not Facebook, that is is the king of all social networks. Heck, with Mountain Lion, Twitter becomes the world’s first social network to be baked right into a desktop operating system!
Think about that for a second. For all its might and reach, it’s dinky little Twitter, not the mighty Facebook, that has become an integrated feature across not only all iOS devices, but now all Macs. We can speculate endlessly about why that is — my guess is Facebook pissing off Apple with the whole Ping debacle. Either way, though, Twitter is now uniquely positioned to topple Facebook from its throne as king of all social media.
Apple believes in Twitter, and Mountain Lion proves it. The real question is, with $100 Billion in the bank, does Apple believe in Twitter and its future as a part of iOS and OS X to buy them outright? We’ll see, but nothing would surprise me at this point.
