Why did Apple choose Twitter over Facebook?
Apple will deeply integrate Twitter into iOS 5 when it releases this Fall, but not Facebook. Now why is that? Facebook is the largest social networking platform on the planet, with more than 500 million users, according to the company (Hell …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's iOS social strategy had already moved away from Facebook: April coverage said Apple removed Facebook integration from iOS 4 and substituted Media Stream, while January reporting cast iOS 5 and Media Stream as a possible competitive response to Facebook.
At the same time, Twitter was being framed as an identity provider for Apple's platform, extending a relationship that earlier coverage had tracked. The iOS 5 choice therefore makes the operating system's social layer a selective distribution decision rather than a neutral connector to every major network.
First-order effects
- Twitter gains deep iOS 5 distribution and an identity role inside Apple's mobile platform, while Facebook is excluded from that built-in integration.
- Apple controls which social service receives default placement in iOS 5, rather than leaving that access to Facebook's larger user base.
Second-order effects
- Facebook must rely more heavily on its own app and web presence on Apple devices, because the operating system will not supply comparable native integration.
- Developers building around Twitter identity or sharing gain a platform-supported path on iOS 5, reinforcing Twitter's appeal relative to services without that access.
Third-order effects
- The decision illustrates how mobile operating-system owners can shape social-network competition by allocating default integration and identity access.
- If other platform owners make similarly selective choices, social services' reach will depend increasingly on gatekeeper partnerships rather than audience scale alone.
The trend: Mobile platforms are becoming gatekeepers of social distribution, with default integration and identity access determining which networks receive the lowest-friction reach.