Apple Reportedly Considering Huge Investment In Twitter

The NY Times reports that Apple has internally discussed an investment into Twitter to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. From the article: "There is no guarantee that the two companies, which are not in negotiations at the moment, will come to an agreement. But the earlier talks are a sign that they may form a stronger partnership amid intensifying competition from the likes of Google and Facebook. Apple has not made many friends in social media. Its relationship with Facebook, for example, has been strained since a deal to build Facebook features into Ping, Apple's music-centric social network, fell apart. Facebook is also aligned with Microsoft, which owns a small stake in it. And Google, an Apple rival in the phone market, has been pushing its own social network, Google Plus. 'Apple doesn't have to own a social network,' Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said at a recent technology conference. 'But does Apple need to be social? Yes.'"

Comments

What else are they going to do with the cash?

[ExploHD]

With all of their assets in the bank, they could do more R&D or they can start absorbing other companies. Looks like we know what their plan is now; I expect Apple technology to be at the same level as everybody else, from here on out.

Re:What else are they going to do with the cash?

[Tough Love]

With all of their assets in the bank, they could do more R&D or they can start absorbing other companies.

Well, any company with a decent business plan has a P/E too high for even Apple to afford. (Example: Facebook - P/E 125)

Fallback is to buy cheaper companies with lower margin, thus averaging down their own margin. Brilliant. See, unless the acquistion is diabolically stategic, shareholders would be better off just taking the cash out in dividends. And Apple hasn't been showing a whole lot of brilliance lately.

Re:What else are they going to do with the cash?

[knuthin]

...rather than buying startups like Microsoft. Time will tell.

I had to read this twice. You probably meant "rather than buying startups, like Microsoft does."

Re:What else are they going to do with the cash?

[jhigh]

I'm not certain what the OP meant, but I believe that Google acquiring Twitter would be a huge step forward for G+. The biggest problem that G+ has is that, while lots of people may have accounts, no one actually uses their account. If I could integrate Twitter and post to my G+, I would do so in a heartbeat. You would suddenly be taking a great deal of content from Twitter and cross-publishing it onto G+ where others could comment on it, share it, etc.

I think that it could make G+ a real player in social media.

Anyone here

[darkfeline]

actually use twitter? In my mind, all it is is vendor-locked-down RSS feeds for monkeys with short attention spans. Does that intersect with Apple's userbase at all?

Re:Anyone here

[Tom]

Finally a like mind!

I've never understood what the whole Twitter fad is all about. For SMS messages, at least the length limit has a technical purpose. For artistic reasons, extreme limits sometimes work as well. But for expressing thoughts or anything?

It's a cute idea gone horribly wrong, in my eyes. But apparently, in a world where ADD is cool, it's exactly what the monkeys want.

If anything, Twitter is living reminder that I don't understand the world anymore. I simply don't get it, and I don't understand how the company can be worth more than, say, the pub down the street.

Great

[undulato]

Now I'll _have_ on to Google plus..

How about they improve the Finder instead?

[mfearby]

With Apple's huge pile of cash they could shell out a few bucks to improve their file manager. It's a child's toy compared to what it should have evolved into by now. The path bar is something so sad that even I could have designed it. The dock is nasty, too. And they could add some preference options for people who come from normal computing backgrounds -i.e., ones where the Home and End keys actually move to the beginning and end of the current line. Gee, that'd be awesome, wouldn't it? It won't even cost much, either. But will Apple lift so much as a finger to even consider improving what they already have in lieu of dreaming up more shiny to distract users from the fact that some aspects of their OS have been crappy from day one??? Nope. Because they're utterly hopeless. I'll stick to my Linux, thanks.

Re:How about they improve the Finder instead?

[Tough Love]

I heard that Apple plans to introduce a one-button keyboard.

Re:How about they improve the Finder instead?

[value_added]

And they could add some preference options for people who come from normal computing backgrounds -i.e., ones where the Home and End keys actually move to the beginning and end of the current line.

My computing background has taught me that Home and End keys are represented by CTRL-A and CTRL-E, respectively. When I bought my first Mac, I was pleased to discover that what I learned was still valid and Just Worked as promised. ;-)

Granted, what you say about some of Finder's behaviour is valid, and similarly valid (but often less annoying) for replacement file managers like Path Finder, but I reckon few really care or notice. And of those that do, they probably have trivial needs. File management is important to me so instead of maintaining A Really Big List of why Finder, Path Finder et al suck, I opted for the CMS route, dropping to a terminal as needed and relying on a mix of AppleScript + Bash for routine chores.

If it helps. Option + Up Arrow can take you to Home where Home is the top of a list.

Re:How about they improve the Finder instead?

[mfearby]

Apple prided themselves on making computing easy, but to release a file manager and then never improve upon it, and to expect users to write Apple Scripts (what a stupid language *that* is!) or to fire up a Terminal (Oh no, the most unholy of unholies on a Mac OS, using a command-line!), is something I will never understand. Apple seem to be hell-bent on NEVER improving the Finder. Path Finder isn't much chop, either. It still offers the "Replace" button instead of merging folders like normal operating systems do. The writing is on the wall for the Mac OS, anyway. Just like Ubuntu has done with Unity, GNOME have done with GNOME 3, and Windows will soon do with 8, these morons seem to think that tactile input devices are going to wiped from the face of the earth and made a crime to possess, because they're all making it progressively more difficult to use computers. Thank god for the likes of KDE (which I have recently re-adopted).

Re:How about they improve the Finder instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah: and the button is called "PAY"

Why?

[caffemacchiavelli]

I fail to see anything but Dutch tulips in this. What can Apple possibly gain here, in real terms, not "Uhm we need to be social" lingo?

I could understand Google's, FB's, even MS' interest; they all found ways to monetize eyeballs, even though FB is still trying to mature and Bing seems to be moving backwards. But Apple? They sell high-end hipster equipment. What do they need a free SMS spamming service for? I can already tell the world what I had for breakfast and which mobile device I elected to publish this momentous bit of information with, I'm not sure more integration will make my customer experience better in any meaningful way.

Re:Huge? Not exactly

[93 Escort Wagon]

Oh, I'm reasonably sure Twitter would find a way to quickly burn through it. These internet startups don't seem to manage for the long term at all - and why should they, since the founders' intent is usually to maximize profit and then cash out?