Apple only outed Ping – its music-focused social network baked into iTunes 10 – yesterday but the verdict online hasn’t been good. Perennial early-adopter Robert Scoble summed up the general consensus in a tweet: “PING = Ping Is No Good. Geesh, Apple, you could have copied a lot of the innovations that Facebook and Twitter have shown you. Sigh.” We’ve rounded up the 10 most common criticisms of Ping and 10 ways Apple could fix them in an iTunes 10 update…
1 Ping keeps you locked within the walls of iTunes 10
With Ping, Apple has created a social network that isn’t very social. Despite indications that we’ll get Ping Facebook integration, Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal that the social network’s terms were too onerous and there’s no way of sharing recommendations or posts in Ping on Twitter or any other outside service for that matters.
Solution: Apple needs to add the ability to share you Ping updates on Twitter and Facebook. We don’t want to have to maintain another roped off service.
2 Ping is a lonely place and it’s hard to hunt down friends
The aforementioned lack of Facebook integration coupled with an inability to search for contacts using webmail services like Gmail means it’s really hard to build up a friends list on Ping. Aimlessly using the search box or creating a list of people to invite by email is time consuming and tedious.
Solution: Apple needs to make it simpler to search for contacts on other services and add them on mass to your Ping friends list. If it doesn’t, lots of potential Pingers will give up before they start.
3 Ping lacks Genius and only reflects part of your music collection
Ping shows the music you’ve purchased through iTunes rather than your entire iTunes 10 library. That gives a really skewed perspective on your music taste, especially if you still import CDs or, horror of horrors, also buy songs from other stores.
Solution: Apple should use the technology behind Genius to reflect all the songs you’ve to in your music library. It should take a leaf out of Last.fm’s book to give you the option of showing your most played tracks and albums.
4 Ping restricts your tastes to three genres
Signing up for Ping made us frown a little. The choice of musical genres to like is very limited and being restricted to picking three was annoying.
Solution: Apple should expand Ping profiles to make it easier to reflect your taste in music.
5 The Ping suggested artists are bland, bland, bland!
It’s early days so this could change but at the moment the acts Apple recommends in Ping are all big pop acts or middle of the road rockers. It doesn’t matter what genres you say you like, you’ll be pressured to follow Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, U2, Coldplay and…shudder…Jack Johnson.
Solution: Apple needs to encourage a wider range of artists to create pages on Ping.
6 Ping doesn’t have enough people to follow
Currently only 3 of the acts in the British Top 40 have pages on Ping (though you could argue that’s a relief) and veterans like Madonna are nowhere to be seen. Apple is sure to draw in more as time goes on but it should also try and lure some more alternative and independent acts to set up shop on Ping.
Solution: Apple needs to cast its next wider to bring a broader mix of musical talent to Ping.
7 Navigating through Ping is perplexing
iTunes has never been a masterclass in UI design but the controls in Ping are a pain. The buttons are fiddly and having to use the back arrow to get out of dead-ends is irritating.
Solution: Apple should turn set some of the interface designers behind the controls of the new iPod touch onto perking up Ping.
8 Ping profiles feel too limited
While Artist profiles on Ping can include text updates (seemingly pulled from Twitter), video and pictures, ordinary Ping users are stuck with commenting on their friends items, liking tracks and albums and writing reviews.
Solution: Apple should at least look at giving all Ping users a wider range of options for updating their profiles.
9 Ping doesn’t have a dedicated iPhone app
Squeezed into the iTunes app on the iPhone and iPod touch, Ping seems a little unloved and doesn’t allow you to do some simple tasks like searching for new friends. On the smaller screen, the Ping interface is also much trickier to handle.
Solution: Apple should promote Ping to its own iPhone app with a tweaked UI and some more mobile features. To be fair, that’s probably already on the cards.
10 Ping is too narrow: what about films, TV shows and apps?
We haven’t just downloaded iTunes 10 for music. We’ll also be snaffling up TV shows, films and apps. Ping doesn’t reflect that…yet.
Solution: Apple should allow you to share recommendations and ratings for all types of content in the iTunes Store. Again, this is a development we’re pretty likely to see in the future.
Let us know what you think of Ping: is it a great addition to iTunes 10 or just another social network you don’t have time for?
Out now | £free | Apple
