Apple's Ping Social Network Officially Closes

PingApple has officially shut down its failed social network Ping. Reports in June signaled that Apple's social iTunes network would be removed from the next version of iTunes. Apple has since been advertising the fact that the service would shut down as of last night, September 30th. The Ping menu item no longer appears in the current version of iTunes.

Ping was launched in late 2010 and described as a social network for music, allowing iTunes users to share favorite artists and music. Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged in June that "the customer voted and said 'this isn't something that I want to put a lot of energy into'."

The next major version of iTunes is due in October and will have a major overhaul of its interface. From our earlier coverage:

The updated media application will show albums in a grid interface with song listings unfolding below the album cover art when clicked. Searching is improved, showing inline results as you type and the MiniPlayer has been redesigned to show a miniature version of the album cover art and album and song information and playback controls.

The updated iTunes will also get iCloud integration to show all your media content saved in Apple's cloud storage service and save your position in movies or TV shows automatically so that you can pick up where you left off on another device.

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Top Rated Comments

fel10 Avatar
165 months ago
"Ping is going to be missed" Said no one ever.
Score: 44 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Foxer Avatar
165 months ago
The next time someone criticizes Apple Maps (or something else) by invoking, "Steve Jobs would have never allowed this to be released," you can point out the failed logic of that statement with the simple word "Ping."
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
blizaine Avatar
165 months ago
Ping just shows that Apple can't do anything right!!!! What a bunch of losers!

oh crap, I thought I was on engadget. Nevermind.
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cRuNcHiE Avatar
165 months ago
At least iTunes will be slightly less bloated now!
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Roessnakhan Avatar
165 months ago
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
darkslide29 Avatar
165 months ago
As much as I hate facebook integration everywhere, in this case failing to agree to terms with Facebook probably doomed Ping from the start.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)