It was always doomed to failure. Type Ping into Google images and you’ll get images of a Windows terminal command, not Apple’s musical social network. AllThingsD even reports that it could already be in the grave after the next iTunes update, spelling an end to the short and uneventful life of a social network that many I’m sure didn’t even know existed.
Harsh words perhaps, but having been built up so much by Steve Jobs when it launched back in September 2010, it has simply failed to live up to its billing, rather like the new version of Myspace. With the next iTunes update apparently coming this autumn, it won’t be long before the definitive fall of Ping (no pun intended), an experience Apple will be keen to put behind them.
As Tim Cook said at D10, “We tried Ping, and I think the customer voted and said ‘This isn’t something that I want to put a lot of energy into,”. Not many companies would own up to a failure like that, so you have to give him full credit for that. It’s best if Apple focuses on making great hardware and operating systems over making social networks. Leave that up to the big boys in Facebook and Twitter.
