Ping, Apple's misfired social network, bids farewell

By Salvador Rodriguez

Sept. 29, 2012 12 AM PT

As worldwide attention focuses on Apple’s problem-riddled Maps app, another Apple miscue is about to be quietly put to rest.

This month, Apple’s iTunes music social network -- Ping -- began displaying a sign notifying users that the network was no longer accepting new users and will shut down Sunday.

Ping’s closing comes as little surprise. Apple plans to update iTunes next month and will integrate it with Facebook and Twitter, letting users “Like” and share songs, apps and other pieces of content.

In the end, Ping will be put to rest after just two years of existence, both of which were filled with absolute irrelevance.

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The Cupertino, Calif., tech giant introduced Ping in September 2010 as a way of pushing song discovery. But the social network never caught on, and that’s because it was doomed from the start.

Apple launched Ping without giving users the ability to connect the service with Facebook. That gave people very little incentive to try Ping.

The late Steve Jobs was asked about it around the time of Ping’s release, and he said Apple had hoped to have Ping connect with Facebook but decided not to because Facebook was asking for “onerous terms that we could not agree to.”

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Now that the end is near, just a handful of people on Twitter seem to care. Most of them are just making fun of the service or comparing it to Apple Maps. I scanned the network for any tears, but the closest I came to any was the tweet below.