Apple Reportedly Eying Twitter

Apple is closing in on a $700 million, all-cash deal to buy Twitter, Gawker reports. Silicon Valley sources say an agreement could be announced as early as next month at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, and the iPhone is reportedly the force behind the deal: Its users already post countless Twitter messages on Tweetie and other Apple apps.

Twitter recently turned down a $500 million cash-and-stock offer from Facebook, and has also been approached by Microsoft and Google. And though some point to a disconnect between hardware-focused Apple and Web-based Twitter, the deal makes sense, Owen Thomas writes, in that it could help “secretive and paranoid” Apple overcome its resistance “to the wide-open ways of the Web.”