Apple joined Twitter back in 2011, but it left its account inactive until yesterday morning. Apple's Twitter account lit up with a new avatar, background photo, and verified status, ahead of the company's iPhone event next week. Apple kept its account clear of Tweets for most of Friday, until a promoted tweet started appearing later in the day referencing the event next week. However, the tweet didn't appear on Apple's timeline, and the company still has 0 tweets.

It's a move that means Apple is paying to tweet without tweeting, as the company has still not issued a public tweet despite joining the service five years ago. Apple's promotional tweet is also designed to trigger an automatic tweet reply to anyone who retweets it, meaning the company has actually tweeted more than 20,000 times without ever actually tweeting, kind of.

September 7 at 10 a.m. PT

Watch the event on https://t.co/yLa2e4Xr2R.

RT for a reminder on event day. #AppleEvent pic.twitter.com/e9MHNkLeoi — Apple (@Apple) September 2, 2016

@tomwarren thank you.

We’ll send you a reminder shortly before the event.

See you on the 7th. pic.twitter.com/0H1jR3MteP — Apple (@Apple) September 3, 2016

Samsung used paid tweets (dark tweets) to promote its own phone back in February, and Apple's tactic is clearly centered around this single promotional tweet for now. Apple has also purchased a custom hashtag emoji for Twitter, alongside its auto responder. It will be interesting to see if Apple attempts to maintain its minimalist approach to design and Twitter by continuing with paid tweets after its media event next week. The Verge will be live from Apple's iPhone event on September 7th, and you can find out what we're expecting right here.