Apple finally tweeted from @Apple for the first time…or did it?

It’s been less than a week since Apple seemingly activated its dormant Twitter account, and already the company is magically confounding us.

This morning, Apple sent out what appeared to be its first tweet:

[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":2048141,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,social,","session":"C"}']See more

Today’s the day.
Watch the event on https://t.co/yLa2e4FQbj pic.twitter.com/ZxBGMR49wY

— Apple (@Apple) September 7, 2016

Pretty much what you’d expect. Except, when you went to the @Apple Twitter page, it showed no tweets:

What in the name of Kim Kardashian is going on here?

Over at MarketWatch, tech editor Jeremy Owens unravelled the mystery of the incredible disappearing tweet.

Owens spotted in the meta data of the tweet via TweetDeck that this was actually a Twitter ad posted by Apple. This means it looks like a tweet, and walks like a tweet, and even smells like a tweet. But it doesn’t appear in the @Apple timeline.

Owens also noted that the metadata indicates that a Canadian digital-marketing firm called IC Group LP was involved in the tweet. Because tweeting is complicated stuff, so why not hire someone to do it for you if you’re the world’s most valuable company?

It’s getting plenty of favorites and retweets, as you’d expect. And someone at Team Apple Social is @replying to some messages, which means some poor Jane or John is pulling an all-nighter manning the social media decks. These replies don’t appear in the time line, either.

[aditude-amp id="medium1" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":2048141,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,social,","session":"C"}']

Still, Apple has discovered Twitter. And we know Twitter can use all the users and ad dollars it can get. So, despite the fact that it only took Apple 10 years to start tweeting here (five, since it joined in 2011), it already has more followers than you.

The universe is unfair like that.