techcrunch.com — Everyone knows that Apple is an extremely secretive company. Some would say to a fault. But it seems to have served them well over the years. Thats why its not surprising at all to see that none of Apples key executives use public social networking services. And thats why its a bit interesting that Apple Senior Vice President of iPhone Software, Scott Forstall, just joined Twitter.
Forstall hasnt tweeted yet, and who knows if he actually will. But what I do know is that his account has been verified by Twitter meaning it is actually him. And I also know that theres no way Twitter would have verified the account unless he (or someone at Apple on his behalf) asked Twitter to. Something is up. But what?
Its certainly possible that Forstall wants to save his vanity Twitter handle (@forstall) just in case someone else tries to use it to impersonate him or if he thinks he may want to use the service in the future (like when he no longer works at Apple). But the more interesting scenario will be if he intends to actually use the account sometime soon.
Certainly, Apple knows that theyre taking hits left and right on the various social networks about issues such as the iPhone 4 antenna problems. So far, theyve shown no interest in managing such things, but might they be coming around? It doesnt seem likely the Forstall would be doing that, but remember that fellow SVP Phil Schiller is the one who personally took charge of the App Store issues when they were spiraling out of control. That effort seemed to work well.
Then of course there is Apple CEO Steve Jobs who likes to personally respond to emails from customers.
But lets remember that Forstall is the Vice President of iPhone software. Perhaps hes exploring Twitter because Apple is thinking about some sort of partnership or deeper integration of the service with the iPhone going forward. After all, Twitters iPhone app (formerly known as Tweetie) is undoubtedly one of the most popular apps on the device.
And dont forget the rumors that Apple was thinking about Facebook integration for the iPhone. Nothing came of that with iOS 4, but integration of Facebook and Flickr in software such as iPhoto, suggests that Apple isnt opposed to such partnerships. For the iPhone, Twitter could be a perfect one. But thats all pure speculation, of course.
Plenty of other big time executives from Eric Schmidt to Marc Benioff to Bill Gates use Twitter quite regularly. Hell, even Mark Zuckerberg has an account. But again, this is Apple.
Thats not to say Apple doesnt use Twitter at all but all the accounts they have are purely for marketing purposes: iTunesTrailers, iTunesMovies, iTunesMusic, etc. And obviously, there are a number of fake Steve Jobs accounts on Twitter and even one for Fake Steve Jobs. But none of those are legitimate. And again, the more interesting thing here is that Apple verified Forstalls.
When asked for comment, a Twitter representative said they didnt know anything about it. Ive reached out to Apple as well but dont expect to hear back.
So who knows whats going on here. Maybe Forstall just decided to see what all the fuss was about. (But again, why bother verifying it?) Of course, with zero tweets and zero people hes following, it could be a bit boring. Or maybe Apple is about to get a lot more interesting. Can you imagine if Jobs was regularly tweeting? Given his brief email style, it actually seems like the perfect medium for him.
Jul 14, 2010 View in Crawl 4
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