Just Like We Didn’t Tell You: No Apple-Facebook Tie-Up Today
That Facebook and Apple would settle their differences in order to forge a partnership in time for Apple’s new iPhone press conference today had been much anticipated, predicted and widely reported. The rumor mill said all sorts of things — that Twitter would be swapped out in favor of Facebook as the iOS social identity provider; that Facebook would hold a competing mobile platform event this week; and most commonly, that Facebook would finally release its long-in-development iPad app.
We at AllThingsD spent more than our fair share of time looking into the possibilities over the last few weeks, so please indulge us for a second when we say: We didn’t tell you so.
Facebook played no part in the Apple event today, which saw the introduction of the iPhone 4S (but not the hoped-for iPhone 5) and its virtual personal assistant Siri.
To the best of our knowledge, Facebook was never part of the event. Other outlets are now covering for their miss by saying Apple pulled Facebook at the last minute, but that absolutely doesn’t align with what our sources have been saying for the past couple weeks. And so far our sources have not been wrong.
What’s clear is that Facebook and Apple are having trouble negotiating where one platform could end and the other begin. That problem is especially sticky for apps, where it’s unclear how an integrated operating system (Apple) and a social identity, sharing and discovery system (Facebook) could provide a seamless experience across both native and Web apps while both get paid for their efforts.
And of course, there are the interpersonal conflicts that have developed between the two companies as partnership negotiations have dragged on. That bad blood persists, our sources said time and again.
When Apple and Facebook do figure out a way to work together, we’ll be sure to let you know.
With reporting by John Paczkowski.
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Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.