Apple wears its love for microblogging social network Twitter on its sleeves. With iOS 5, Twitter became deeply integrated into every iPhone and iPad; with Mountain Lion, Twitter will be a native feature of every Mac.
Given the above, it would be easy to conclude that Apple doesn’t think much of Facebook. However, as Tim Cook made clear to investors at the annual Apple Shareholder’s Meeting today, the truth is more complicated.
Asked by shareholders about Facebook, Tim Cook said that Facebook was a friend.
“Facebook [is a] friend. We do a lot with them, and our users use Facebook an enormous amount.”
In fact, Cook says that he personally would like to work more closely with Facebook going forward.
“I’ve always thought that the two companies could do more together,” he said. “We’ve integrated Twitter … It’s been great for Twitter, and it’s been equally great for our users.”
To me, that strongly implies that it’s Facebook and not Apple that is the holdout in integrating Facebook’s services into Apple’s core operating systems. Cook is saying straight out: “Hey, integrating Twitter’s been great for everyone; why not Facebook?” Seems to me to be a pretty major clue that if Apple and Facebook can come to terms, we’ll see Facebook integration in iOS 6.
What do you think? Should Apple do more to work with Facebook in future versions of iOS and OS X?
