Apple is Rich and Hungry for More Facebook Integration

As 30 or so protesters rallied for workers' rights outside on Thursday, Apple chief executive Tim Cook led the company's first shareholder meeting since the death of Steve Jobs and, more than once, dropped the F-bomb.

As 30 or so protesters rallied for workers' rights outside on Thursday, Apple chief executive Tim Cook led the company's first shareholder meeting since the death of Steve Jobs and, more than once, dropped the F-bomb.

That would be Facebook. In response to a shareholder question "Facebook, friend or foe?" Cook said the social network is a friend, according to CNBC's liveblog of the event. "We do a lot with them, our users use Facebook an enormous amount… I've always thought that the two companies could do more together." Rumor has it that Facebook was supposed to enjoy the deep integration that Twitter won with the release of iOS 5 last year, but something went awry. As ZDNet pointed out last month, however, new versions of the software show Facebook fields in native apps like Address Book, so it's not out of the question that a Facebook Share button to match Twitter's Tweet button in Apple apps could be right around the corner.

The company also acknowledged how absurdly rich it is with over $98 billion in cash on hand. Bloomberg says that Cook described the sum as "more than we need to run a company," and he's in "active discussions" about how to spend it. As novelist and radio host Kurt Andersen points out on Twitter, "Apple could buy, with its cash on hand, Viacom, CBS, Time Warner, The Washington Post, and The NY Times. And have $10 billion to spare." Other outlandish suggestion we've seen include: Apple should buy Yahoo! See also: Apple should invest in LOL Cats and Apple should take over the universe: