Posts tagged with "ping"

Apple Finally Has A Better Short URL for Ping: iTun.es

Tonight I went out to show some friends of mine Infinity Blade for the iPhone (they all loved the graphics, by the way) and when I came back home 10 minutes ago I decided I would take 10 minutes to check out The Smith’s albums that were released in the iTunes Store earlier today.

I had configured my Ping account to share items on Twitter, so I clicked the “Post” button and noticed something interesting: Apple has finally deployed a new short URL for Ping tweets, itun.es. The itun.es domain was purchased by Apple years ago, and since Apple announced the Ping - Twitter integration in November many thought itun.es would be a great option for those tweeted items. The itun.es links are now ready to go and they show up in the iTunes Store when sharing a song / album on Twitter. Read more

Nice Move, Apple: Michael Jackson’s New Song A Ping Exclusive

In a clear attempt to drive more traffic to its music-based and iTunes Store-oriented social network, Ping, Apple managed to grab an exclusive from Michael Jackson’s upcoming posthumous, a new single called “Much Too Soon”. The song, in fact, can only be streamed on Apple’s Ping through Jackson’s official artist page, and as you can guess you have to sign up for Ping to view the page.

While there’s quite a debate going on whether this new MJ album actually features MJ or not, this is undoubtedly a clever move for Apple which I’m certain will drive lots of extra traffic to the service, especially from people who didn’t think would sign up for Ping at first – e.g. Jackson’s loyal fans.

Michael Jackson’s new album will be released on December 14th. [via MichaelJackson.com]

Business Insider: Ping One Of The Biggest Flops of 2010→

Business Insider: Ping One Of The Biggest Flops of 2010

It’s not just Google that can’t master social. Apple also struggles. Ping was launched to much fanfare, but it has utterly failed to gain traction.

Ping was launched in September. It recently became available on the iPad. It also got Twitter integration a few weeks ago. I don’t use it and I don’t see many of my friends using it, but I still think a Ping for apps would be great.

Apps aren’t just for geeks anymore. Will Apple ever deploy its own social app discovery platform?

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Apple Updates Game Center Terms To Show Full Names In Friend Requests

A few minutes ago Apple sent out an email notification to inform users that they have updated Game Center terms & conditions to show full names associated with Apple IDs in friend requests.

We have changed the Game Center terms and conditions to provide you notice that if you send a friend invitation, the full name associated with your Apple ID will be shared with the recipient. If you accept a friend invitation, the full name associated with your Apple ID will be shared with the sender.

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Apple Brings Ping To The iPad

Earlier today, ahead of iOS 4.2 launch, Apple updated the backend of the iTunes app for iPad to include support for Ping. Once you’ve authorized Ping in iTunes 10 on the Mac, you can access your stream through a Ping tab at the bottom of iTunes app. Just like the desktop version, Ping for iPad integrates with Twitter and automatically tweets every time you like or post something on Ping.

You can like and post songs available in the iTunes Store (sadly, there’s no way to integrate Ping with the native iPod app), check on your profile and see your activity. There’s also a concert-specific section that shows local concerts, bands on tour and links to purchase tickets on ticketmaster.

Ping integration in iTunes for iPad suggests iOS 4.2 is really around the corner now, as we reported when Apple released the second GM build of iOS 4.2 for iPad last night.

Check out more screenshots below. [Thanks, Tim] Read more

Hide and Disable Ping in iTunes 10.1

iTunes 10.1, launched a few hours ago, introduced two new options to hide Ping from the sidebar and disable it completely using parental controls. First, check out our previous post detailing how you can hide Ping’s dropdown menu using a Terminal hack.

If you want to hide the Ping element from iTunes’ sidebar, open iTunes’ preferences, hit the General tab and deselect Ping in the “Show” section. That will remove it from the sidebar.

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Apple Silently Updates Ping Sidebar To Include Genius Recommendations

Earlier today Apple silently updated the Ping sidebar in iTunes, which is now simply called “iTunes Sidebar” and doesn’t require a software update.

Together with a name change, the sidebar now features the comeback of Genius Recommendations, a functionality many users were missing since iTunes 10.0.1 introduced the “Ping Sidebar”.

Ping’s “like” and “post” actions are still available in the sidebar, and so is Recent Activity. Genius’ items are listed below them. To turn Genius on, click on “Store” then “Turn On Genius” in the menubar.

To remove Ping’s dropdown menu, follow our previous tutorial.

Mark Zuckerberg Checks In At Jobs’ House For Dinner

Apple wants to make Ping work. The music-based social network is struggling to gain traction, and Steve Jobs needs to figure out a way to let people engage with the system and share data with their contacts - all in order to collect more data and drive more clicks to the iTunes Store. It’s a good plan, but it’s not working as expected because Apple hasn’t got the social infrastructure Facebook has. So Steve invited Facebook’s CEO over at dinner to discuss some Ping related stuff including Facebook integration, the Los Angeles Times reports:

They are two of Silicon Valley’s most famous founders: Jobs created the world’s must-have gadgets, Zuckerberg the world’s most popular social networking service. These days they are often mentioned in the same breath. Now apparently the two also recently broke bread.

Apparently Jobs invited Zuckerberg for dinner at his house to talk about Ping two weeks ago. That’s when a tipster spotted them on a stroll in Palo Alto.

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Apple Posts Ping Guidelines for Artists

Remember Ping? Apple sure does: it’s the “social network” for music discovery and sharing they embedded right into iTunes 10, together with a new icon (the one you love) and a refined UI. I’m not a big fan of Ping (I think it’s useless and far from being a “social network”) but Apple surely believes in it. After all, it’s a way to drive more downloaded to the iTunes Store, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ping extending to movies, TV shows and apps in the near future. Read more