It’s been a rough week for Apple; sure, the iPhone 5 has sold quite well, but iPhone owners have been vocally frustrated on blogs and social media about the company’s sub-par Maps application for mobile devices. To add to that disappointment, Apple’s Ping music-based social network — the one built into iTunes — finally shut down this weekend after just over two years of falling flat with digital music fans.
The service allowed iTunes users to follow each other and see what music they purchased or recommended, and it featured some bands that briefly maintained presences there. Ping was also plagued with spam and fake accounts, some claiming to be famous music artists to fool users.
The initial buzz was loud (as it often is for Apple products) but it quickly died down and pretty much wasn’t spoken of again by most people. Yesterday, on September 30, 2012, Apple announced through iTunes that Ping would shut down immediately. It’s gone, and it is set to be replaced by more thorough Facebook and Twitter integration — which is probably what iTunes music fans want more, anyway.
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