In June, news surfaced that Apple was axing Ping, its own social music network, in the next major iTunes update. Today, reports are suggesting that Apple may replace Ping with Twitter. Right now iTunes users can link their Twitter and Ping accounts together in order to do stuff like finding friends to follow on Ping, but that’s about it.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple and Twitter continue to discuss future product integrations, including a deeper integration with iTunes. These reports come on the back of earlier reports from The New York Times that speculated that Apple and Twitter have been in investment talks. However, WSJ has dismissed this report as being year-old news, suggesting that rumors of Twitter replacing Ping in iTunes is separate from the investment talks.
Confused yet? Here’s the SparksNotes version: The WSJ says Apple’s investment talks with Twitter is old news, but Twitter integration with iTunes is new news.
While the two companies are not actually in negotiations, according to The Wall Street Journal, at the moment, the two companies are still working closely together. Apple has recently integrated Twitter into iOS and Mountain Lion.
For those who are somewhat out of the loop, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted that Ping wouldn’t be around much longer, while promising to add more social networking functionality to Apple’s products. True to his word, iPhones are seeing system-wide Facebook integration in iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion. Ping’s demise isn’t much of a surprise as it disappointed users, which resulted in complaints about Ping not offering enough social networking capabilities.
With Twitter’s popularity already so widely established, it would make sense for Apple to consider replacing Ping with Twitter. Hopefully Twitter’s presence in iTunes becomes a reality in the near future. More importantly, hopefully it doesn’t suck.
Source: The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal via Apple Bitch
Image Credit: ModMyi
