Apple is behind the social networking curve.

I know Apple isn't a "social network" and I know it's not a "Web 2.0" company (the ongoing slow-motion train wreck that is MobileMe notwithstanding).

I don't care. Apple is still my favorite technology company.

But I just had an experience that illustrated just how far behind the Web curve Steve, Tim &co are.

I was using NetNewsWire to read the latest computerite news on my iPhone. This is, I'm informed, a fairly standard way of staying informed.

I came across a post on Daring Fireball that really wanted to be opened in Safari. And so I did. And indeed, it was awesome. And I wanted to post it to Facebook, and --

This is not possible.

Fine. I went to the laptop and made it happen. Voila, just like in 1998, use the computer for the computer things and don't forget who's who.

How sad. How absurd. How simple to add a "Share Link" option after "Mail Link to this Page." Let the user configure it to use Facebook or MySpace or both or something else, as long as the (public) API is respected.

Cost to Apple: $0.00 (I guarantee Facebook would send them a dozen engineers to do the work).

I would say it's not Apple's problem, but there is a precedent: Google Maps links open in Google Maps, and YouTube links open in YouTube, and of course I would never imply anything like a conflict of interest with Apple's valued board member and competitor-on-many-fronts Mr. Schmidt.

I hope to see this soon. And if Apple really doesn't want to keep Safari up to date in these things, fine: as long as they give us the option of choosing our default browser in the iPhone Preferences.