Steve Jobs, magic maker!

Is Apple’s latest product, Ping, an attempt at Twitter and Facebook’s twin social networking crowns?

It was another big day in Cupertino Wednesday: Apple CEO Steve Jobs, black t-shirt firmly in place, unveiled Apple’s latest offerings in a conference that was live streamed to even the darkest corners of the Internet (but not, it appears, for PC users). Just in time for the upcoming holiday season, Apple has overhauled its line of MP3 players, the iPod Touch, Nano and Shuffle, cadging some features from its hugely popular iPhone 4 and shrinking the players where applicable. The Touch seems to be a particular point of pride for Jobs, who told the journalists at Wednesday’s unveiling, “We’ve put our most advanced technology inside the new iPod touch.” That now includes iPhone 4’s Retina Display (resolution far better than on any previous Touch), FaceTime video conferencing (and the front-facing camera it requires), and the IOS 4.1 operating system.

But while the new line of MP3 players are pretty cool, Apple’s biggest news out of yesterday is Ping – a social networking system built directly into iTunes and, as some observers have claimed, Apple’s first play for social networking supremacy. Ping allows users to follow their friends or favourite artists, a la Twitter, to find out what they’re listening to or what they’re recording, as well as to create custom playlists and share them. It’s already available in iTunes 10 and to 160 million users in 60 countries.

Good idea? Maybe not, says Sam Diaz from tech blog ZDNet.com. “It was a nice effort, I suppose. After all, if you have 160 million members – with credit card numbers on file, no less – it’s probably a nice way to jumpstart into the social networking game. But will users really go to iTunes to be social?” he asked. “I know I won’t.” iTunes is already “bloated”, Diaz complained, and this would just be over the top. “Apple is good at what it does – hardware, software, design and, of course, marketing. But social networking? Even if it is tied to music, I just can’t see widespread adoption of Ping – even if it’s forced on us through iTunes.”

But some folks think that Facebook should be worried about the tech giant’s foray into networking. Nick O’Neill at the blog, AllFacebook.com, worried, “As far as I’m concerned, Apple has also just become a direct Facebook competitor. While they don’t have the user base of Facebook, they are a force to be reckoned with and they have a platform which has already taken developers away from Facebook.” This, possibly especially after Jobs revealed that Facebook’s terms to allow Ping users to connect through the site were too “onerous” and the two were unable to strike a deal. It’s a move that surprised tech bloggers; but if Ping succeeds, it may be one that Facebook regrets.

Right now, however, Apple’s Ping is a bit more pong, according to The Telegraph’s tech blogger Shane Richmond. Right now, there’s not integration with any existing social networking sites, meaning that the only way to connect to friends is to search for their name or invite them directly. “That’s just a teething trouble, I’m sure. Finding friends should get easier as the network grows but Ping has two other significant problems,” Richmond observed. “Firstly, it doesn’t understand my musical taste, and secondly, social music apps have already moved beyond the iTunes model.” What’s he mean by that? “The world of online music has changed since Apple launched the iTunes Store. At the cutting edge now are services like Spotify and mflow, both of which allow you to share music with friends, rather than simply recommending it. It’s far better to be able to let a friend listen to a song that you like than simply tell them about it.” Ultimately, he noted, “Apple has a lot more work to do if they’re to make a success of Ping.”