Apple never stops tweaking its iOS software and that may be the main reason the popularity of the iPhone continues to skyrocket. And the battle between the titans, Apple and Microsoft and Google has made for some interesting hook ups.

List this as one of those strange relationships starting at the bar as a drunken rebound.

Apple and Twitter recently struck a deal to make the social networking service more fully embedded into the operating system of iOS 5, which is set to premiere this fall. This new operating system, found in iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, signals a shift beyond application-based services to one where a specific social media application is integrated into the very workings of the device. According to an Apple statement, this means that there will be a more streamlined process in posting photos, videos and links from your phone to Twitter.

iPhone users will also be able to completely sync their contacts and Twitter followers. While many of these features are already available in some form or another, they will now be part of the internal workings of the device software rather than a link through a third party application.

For Twitter, this marks another step in a steady process to integrate services previously handled by third-party applications. The microblogging site already purchased the popular third-party application TweetDeck earlier this year and recently added its own photo sharing service.

These moves were seen as preparation for something big, which the deal with Apple confirms.

Twitter, which unofficially launched (or at least started taking off) in Austin at South by Southwest in 2007, is now more than 200 million users strong.

iPhone users remain the largest group of social media fanatics. They're so fanatical that extra cellphone towers had to be shipped to Austin to handle the extra traffic and cellphone use during recent SXSWs. Demand is now so high for Apple gadgets that a temporary pop-up store opened during SXSW this past spring.

Hard to say who the real winner is here, though it is certainly not Facebook.

The social networking juggernaut with 700 million users, more than three times the number of active Twitter accounts, declined the advances of Apple to integrate into newer versions of iOS although it is already integrated into Apple's iPhoto software. This marks a significant inroad made by Twitter into the dominance of Facebook in the social media world.

With Microsoft set to incorporate Facebook into its own purchase of Skype we could have a social media arms race on our hands.

In the meantime I'm excited at the possibility of even funnier Autocorrect disasters. Imagine the hilarity when that NSFW video is accidentally texted to your mother or that late night message to your girlfriend ends up on the web.