Last night Dan Frommer and I had a healthy discussion debating the points of his recent Read Write Web article “iPhone Address Book Fiasco Should Be Apple’s Cue to Build Its Own Social Network.” Dan says that Apple should leverage their success and begin building their own social network. I don’t believe Apple needs a social network to succeed.

They Already Have Our Information

Have you have ever purchased a product from the Apple Store, downloaded music from iTunes, or installed an application on your Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad? If you have Apple knows something about you that is more valuable than all of your wall posts on Facebook, circles in Google+, or tweets in Twitter. Apple knows your credit card number, verified street address, and email address. Apple has more than 125 million credit card numbers on file, and when it comes to making money, that is more than Facebook, Google+, or Twitter can say unless of course you are paying these companies to become an advertiser.

In addition to your payment information Apple knows your purchase history. It is hard to be an Apple customer and buy just one Mac, a single song, or a sole app through their chain of retail stores and online services. When is the last time your purchased something through Facebook, Google+ or Twitter? How many repeat purchases did you make? All companies want profit, but knowing what you ate for breakfast or storing the drunk photos from last night only get a company so far. Apple is already making billions without publicizing the fact they have your drunk photos too.

Trust the Cloud

Tim Cook announced that Apple has over 100 million iCloud subscribers at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference.

We have 100 million users of iCloud – we just launched it in October! This is unbelievable.

That means that Apple has access to over 100 million peoples email, contacts, calendars, reminders, bookmarks, notes, and iCloud documents. They know where you are with applications like Find My Friends, and Find My iPhone, and they know what messages you are sending with iMessage. They have every single photo you take with your iOS devices. It may be true that not all 100 million people are using all of these services, or that Apple is not spying into any of this data, but the information that is there has already been collected. Why does Apple need to start a new social network or buy and existing one if they already have access to the personal information of everyone using their products?

Tough Competition

Even if Apple made a social network for customers of iOS, and OS X they would have a hard time competing with the hundreds of millions of users that sign into Facebook, Google, and Twitter from platforms all over the world. Dan makes the point that Apple can’t ignore the popularity of social networks and community games that sell well in the App Store. He insists that Apple enter the arena with a social network of their own and strive to be the best. Apple can’t be the best at everything. They would risk stretching themselves too thin. Despite how much we might like to see an Apple toaster, vacuum, or social network, Apple does not have the resources to be the best at everything. Their best asset is saying no.

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying 'no' to 1,000 things. — Steve Jobs

Apple’s products are the social network. Their stores are the hangouts. Their popularity is the hot topic in the media. Their best bet in social media is to become the dominant platform people use to access Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Building another Ping, MobileMe, or social network is not what Apple does best. Apple builds great products and are already reaping the rewards those products bring in. Starting a social network would just take Apple’s attention away from what they do well, and invite the kind of privacy concerns that go hand in hand with services like Facebook and Google+. Why would Apple risk sharing people’s sensitive information when they already know what people want and sell it directly to the customer? I would rather have Apple continue to make great products for me, then sell me and my information as a product to others.