Why You Want To Disable Apple Ping Facebook Service From Your iTunes 10
While you may have rushed out to get the Ping service for Apple’s iTunes, many users have found that they really don’t want to use it at all. After all, music is very social, and people just love to tell their friends about this phenomenal new artist, or this hot new song..”Ya just gotta listen to this jam, it will change your life!”, and as we all have experienced…it usually doesn’t.
Apple removed feature after launch. Why, we wondered. Here it is. Facebook blocked API access to Ping after failure to strike agreement..THAT’S why, among other reasons, see below.
Social features on iTunes just doesn’t seem to connect with users, nevermind Facebook.
Now Apple has announced Ping, a social network built around music, in their latest offerings of iTunes. But many users do not care nor are they interested in Ping. They are just interested in the music. Social networking it seems, has plateaued with the users, they have just about all they can deal with as it is. They can text, twitter, Facebook, IM, on an on endlessly, why bother with a new network, when they are already connecting on so many levels as it is?
Sources intimate with Facebook, the social networking giant apparently denied Apple’s Ping access to application programming interfaces that would allow it to search for an iTunes user’s friends on Facebook who also had signed up for Ping. Normally, this API access is open and does not require permission.
Unless another web-based social network or being wants to access it often, and with impunity. Facebook does require your agreement to protect you from the entity from gaining full access to your account, your friends accounts, ect. Facebook is focused on protection of user data and infrastructure impact.
And with so many iTunes users, Apple could see an incredible way to grab more users via Facebook and social networking via Ping. There are over 160 million users of iTunes, and the impact could be financially massive for Apple.
However, Facebook, in a surprising announcement, has been in negotiations with Apple trying to come to some agreement, but came away empty-handed. Why they couldn’t come to terms seems to be, according to Steve Jobs, that the terms were ‘onerous’ and that Facebook demanded for the friends connections and suggested using search or email to add friends to Ping be not used.
The Apple launch event in San Francisco for Ping went down like a lead balloon. Apple CEO Jobs was not happy with Facebook, yet claims that you can, on it’s Ping page, “Find even more music fans with a quick search, by sending email invites, or by connecting to your Facebook account”.
OK, just how many friends are we talking? People who listen to the same songs? Do we want to chat about that particular song, or do our already overloaded Facebook buddies do this anyway?
Email invites? Who goes and does that to your email pals? It’s considered rude, and usually people won’t do this unless it’s something that they really do believe will better their friends exsistance. Facebook has all of that covered.
However, if you really do need to find MORE friends, Ping will certainly help you do so, says executive of Worldwide Product Marketing SVP Phil Schiler. Apple still includes the ability to find Facebook friends in it’s demo onstage after it make iTunes downloadable.
It seemed that when Apples main man Steve Jobs proclaimed the 160 million willing users with money to burn, that it was
a call for all spammers, as if they weren’t acutely aware of the dollar signs on the wall. No credit card details are needed to sign up for an iTunes Store account – the requisite accreditation for joining Ping – which would appear the spammers’ way in. This seems to be Steve Job’s way of saying Hey, we’re not inviting spammers, no way! Right.
However, “[Ping] implements no spam or URL filtering,” says internet security firm Sophos, adding that the service is “drowning in scams and spams”.
Graham Clulely, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said: “We’re used to survey scams like this being spread far and wide via sites like Facebook, but clearly the lack of filtering on Ping is making it a brand new playground for the bad guys to operate in.
“It’s ironic that the most common scams on Ping right now revolve around Apple’s own iPhone. It’s safe to assume that Ping does incorporate some rudimentary filtering to prevent offensive messages from being posted, so hopefully Apple’s security team can extend this to also block scam messages and malicious links. In the meantime, though, Ping users should be wary of believing what they read on the new service.”
Remember back in 2009 when Twitter was plagued by spammers? This is what happened when the site announced a declaration of war on spam in October last year
The most common tendency of scamming on Apple’s latest social venture, Ping, is the offering of free iPhones from an unreliable URL. These “guests” are most likely hanging around Ping’s more famous participants, waiting for crumbs.
Ergo, the users of iTunes just aren’t interested in Ping as a social network, Sorry, Mr. Jobs, not this time..But we are sure that you will find a way for iTunes to make more money, it just is never enough, is it? We buy your great Apple products iPhone, iPod, iPad, ect., Apps, Music..go take a vacation, and let us just enjoy our toys before you start to mess with them for a hot minute.
Excerpt from a comment about the newest offering, Ping.
” This is poor very poor product launch from apple. It seem they loosing there magic touch. Wonder who apple going to sack over this. Not including spam filters is an inexcusable error, I mean even a news reporter manage to research what happen with Twitter without a spam filters, surely a Apple researcher or designer could of done some product research before launching this thing onto the market an found the same data an relies that they should incorporate a spam filter from launch.”
Pretty much sums up the disdain from clients of iTunes. Pay attention, Apple. They don’t want it, it’s too much spam fodder for the ‘bots to be able to turn from, that apple is hanging way too low for them no to want to pick it.
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