It’s easy to take Twitter’s deep integration on iOS 5 and go nuts with speculation surrounding its symbolism; “Twitter is the new Facebook,” whatever that means! “Apple chose Twitter over Facebook!” Well as this video of a test build of iOS 4 from this April brings to light, perhaps the choice wasn’t necessarily Apple’s …
If you watch the above video closely, at minute 1:03 you can see clear signs of Facebook integration in the leaked iPhone’s native apps Setting screen, with Twitter nowhere to be found. What’s interesting to note is that in this build of iOS 4 Facebook sits squarely where Twitter is now in the iOS 5 settings menu, without the added icon for iCloud (see left versus right, below).
Yes it’s absolutely not news that iOS had Facebook integration at some point. One developer build included code that would allow you to upload video to Facebook through Photos. Apple had at some point gone to the lengths of trying to patent a contact sync technology that allowed you to directly Friend people on Facebook through your iPhone contacts.
And Business Insider reported in May 2010 that Apple was considering integrating Facebook Connect directly into the SDK, so app developers could add Facebook features to their apps — which while vague, sounds similar to what the Twitter iOS 5 integration entails today. But many of us have forgotten these pieces of the puzzle as we move forward on this story.
It’s widely known that Facebook integration was planned for Ping and less widely known that it was planned for OS X Lion, both integrations were pulled shortly after Ping’s launch in the fall. Jobs said that it was Facebook’s “onerous terms” that broke down the Facebook/Apple partnership, despite the fact that Jobs was seen hanging out with Zuckerberg shortly after Ping’s (failed) launch.
Sure, Apple really doesn’t get social networking and Facebook doesn’t really get gadgets. But going beyond the myriads of strategic reasons you can pull out of the woodwork for why Apple “chose” Twitter over Facebook, it might be wise to mull over the possibility that Facebook could have been Apple’s first choice. Especially considering the evidence.
Image right: BI
Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod (offered with...
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original idea for the term...
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