That seems unlikely if the breakdown in negotiations was as last-minute as others have speculated. Asking someone to implement an open API the night the product ships would be a bit extreme. It's possible that Apple had implemented such an API, but cancelled it at the last minute, but I don't think so. If Jobs didn't want an open API, he wouldn't agree to it in the first place.
With these two companies, it's hard to say who was in the wrong until we have details on what the sticking point was. It could be privacy, it could be advertising, it could be revenue-sharing, etc.
Not really. Jobs didn't set up a lobbying effort to get Facebook to change its mind. He doesn't appear to have even blinked. Instead, he just implemented his own social network.
What's happened here appears entirely consistent with Apple's worldview. They own iTunes and their (huge) slice of the online music sales channel. They're going to do things their way. They'll suffer or succeed accordingly.
Last night's delay of iTunes 10 may well have been due to some last minute hardball negotiating by Apple to get their terms. Facebook must have drawn a line in the sand, forcing Apple to flip off the FB connect button.
Obvious question the author was somehow too lazy to research: what kind of terms could facebook ask for that Apple wouldn't agree to? Is anyone qualified enough to chime in?
this is the exact question all should be asking.. how do we know that apple was looking for terms that facebook wouldn't agree to. To me.. Apple already knows the terms prior to implementing FB connect. I find it unlikely that Facbook is changing their terms from company to company.
Unless I'm missing something, this title is misleading. The article itself doesn't say anything about Jobs making that statement, only the fact that Cult of Mac speculates that FB's terms became onerous.
When I asked Jobs about that, he said Apple had indeed held talks with Facebook about a variety of unspecified partnerships related to Ping, but the discussions went nowhere.
The reason, according to Jobs: Facebook wanted "onerous terms that we could not agree to."
Apple agrees to onerous terms from the studios, who are about as decidedly on the extreme side of onerous as anything on the planet, and failed to negotiate with Facebook? Jobs probably yelled at Zuck and they got into a fight.
