The Anti-IPO: Is Apple Grooming Twitter For All-Out Acquisition?

Let’s play a game. Imagine a company that obsessively controls its product ecosystem. A company that demands a high degree of consistency in the areas of visual and user experience design. A company that routinely sacrifices the interests of third-party developers without a second thought.

Apple, right? Actually, I was thinking of Twitter.

But not the Twitter I know and love, but what is emerging as the new persnickety purveyor of tweets. And I see Apple’s fingerprints all over the place.

There were rumors a few weeks ago reported by The New York Times (and everybody else) that, “Apple, which has stumbled in its efforts to get into social media, has talked with Twitter in recent months about making a strategic investment in it, according to people briefed on the matter.” Then many commentators said that, no, Apple wasn’t investing, or even that because of the integration between the two companies, it “doesn’t have to.”

But in the time since then, Twitter has really dropped the hammer on developers who have built businesses on top of the platform. They have limited the API calls which will keep any given app from growing too large without explicit arrangement with Twitter. Equally worrisome for many developers are the strict display guidelines that prevent tweets from being transformed into standard formats that make sense for feed aggregation sites.

Anil Dash has posted his version of how the Twitter API announcement could have read if they had cared about not alienating developers. Does Twitter have a tin ear, or did they have guidance from Apple?

A social network needs to grow up and monetize, of course. But look how that has worked out so far for Facebook. Twitter CEO Dick Costello told the L.A. Times that the company was in no hurry go public or find a buyer. It has, “a truckload of money in the bank.” And Tim Cook has said that “Apple doesn’t have to own a social network.” So why would this happen?

It comes down to an issue of control, which Apple needs to have. Just take a picture now in iOS and notice the “Tweet” sharing option. Just add filters to the camera app and you’ve got Instagram.

Twitter is now integrated in iOS and OS X Mountain Lion, and I would guess will be in the next version of the iTunes and App Stores and Apple TV, as well. But does Apple really want to do all of this with a company it doesn’t own? What if Twitter turned around and did to Apple what it is now doing to developers?

If my theory is correct, that won’t happen, because Twitter’s API policies have been seriously coached by Apple. Twitter has had API changes before, but nothing like this. The timing of Apple’s supposed negotiations with Twitter were just as Apple’s previous deal with Facebook was falling apart. Facebook wanted to go public and would not subsume its interestes to Apple’s.

So why would Twitter subsume its interests to Apple’s? To beat Facebook.

There’s a further reason, other than owning a social network, why Apple might be interested in Twitter. User experience. Twitter has done a great job of taking a simple product and, for the most part, keeping it simple. Even its sponsored tweets and the introduction of “cards” has not really bogged the system down yet or shifted the balance too far in the direction of marketing.

Apple, the user experience leaders, is actually in danger of losing the “it just works” simplicity that has been a big part of its appeal to consumers. So Apple can make Twitter bigger and Twitter can, perhaps, help Apple stay simple.

I wonder if it’s already a done deal.