Briefly envisioning an Apple-made social network
The following is an exploration of what I believe Apple will make sometime in the future if it ever decides to dip into what we currently call the social networking environment here with Facebook, Google+, and Twitter: you'll find that it's not wholly unbelievable, but that you'll perhaps have some issues with agreeing to the full terms if you're a hardcore Apple fan. An Apple social network would be and will be first and foremost something unique, or at least an amalgamation of uncommon elements combined into a new and groundbreaking service, and it'll be integrated into its iProducts in a way that'll once again re-invigorate the masses to buy in to the lifestyle. If Apple has something to the tune of a social network in the works today, this is what it looks like.
If Apple created a social networking site, it would not have the mass of functions and abilities that places like Google+ and Facebook have, instead it would be limited to a hand-picked set of bits such as your ability to play your iTunes purchased media. Other than that, you'd be able to keep a contact book, call and text your friends (to their mobile devices like iPad and iPhone), and there would be no such thing as a Wall or a Main News Feed. Basically if Apple ever creates a social networking site, it will mature beyond this hanging out on the internet fad, solidifying even further their set of physical products and the ultra-strong tie between the Apple lifestyle and the software bits it employs.
From what I've experienced over the past handful of years in the mobile extension of Apple's great hand then reaching back through the majority of my relatively short time here on the planet, I can see clearly a set of affirmations the company has made with its customers that will without a doubt follow through to the social networking site it may or may not make. You can apply the Apple way to any product or service just so long as it is inside the reach and realistic applicability of Apple's current or near-future family of products and services. Apple's future social networking site will only exist once they've hit the point of no return with absolutely devoted users and the investments they've made with the company.
They're not quite there yet, but the tipping point may well be inside our lifetimes.
[Image via Double-J Design]