So... now what do we do?

Sometimes it seems we can mark the passage of time by waiting for "the next big thing". Google+ has arrived and has many people kicking its tires to see if it will stand the test of time. So, now what do we have to look forward to? For many iPhone users, the anticipation of iOS5 is feeding the social/tech addiction frenzy. Digital Trends (www.digitaltrends.com) expects the firmwared upgrade to be the most significant to date.

Along with cloud computing capability, Apple is fully integrating Twitter over Facebook, but will not completely leave Facebook behind. iOS5 users will be able to link information from you Facebook, Linkedin, Flickr, and (surprisingly) Myspace friends and aggregate the information in phone contacts, but you will have to enter this manually. Twitter users will be more fully integrated. Personally, the aggregation of contacts and the inevitable duplicates it creates is utterly annoying - it will be interesting to see if Apple can get it right.

So how come Apple chose Twitter over Facebook? Mainly because Facebook and Apple don't get along after the less than stellar integration of Facebook and Ping, Apple's music social network. When the agreement went south, Apple turned to Twitter. Also, Apple doesn't care for Facebook's deep relationship with Microsoft. It would have been nice to have full integration with the top three social networks of Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook, but it looks like school-yard politics will dicatate the mobile/social integration pace for now. On a side note, Ping is a pretty fascinating social network. It would be great to see it integrated with the iPod and Genius functions of the iPhone.

For more reading on iOS5 development - please view these two sites:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/twitter-who-ios-5-connects-with-multiple-social-platforms-including-facebook/

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/ios-5-has-twitter-but-wheres-facebook/