Josh Ong
"Apple doesn't have to own a social network," Cook said in response to a question during the D10 conference. "But does Apple have to be social? Yes."
Cook pointed to deep integration of Twitter in iOS 5 and the addition of the feature in the upcoming OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion as examples of the company's social initiatives. He also touted iMessage and Game Center as services that could be thought of as social.
"You'll see more things like that in the future," Cook reportedly said.
When pressed about the future of its Ping service, Cook admitted that he was "carefully avoiding" the issue. He said Apple had "tried Ping," but customers had voted and said they didn't want to "put a lot of energy into" it.
"Will we kill it? I don’t know. We’ll look at that," Cook said.
Apple released Ping in 2010 to much fanfare, but the service has not attracted much attention since then. Meant to promote social music discovery, Ping got off to an abortive start because it momentarily had Facebook integration before the feature was pulled. Then Apple CEO Steve Jobs said Facebook had demanded "onerous terms" that he was unwilling to agree to.
In spite of the two companies' disagreement, Cook said at the conference on Tuesday that Apple and Facebook enjoy a "very solid" relationship. He hinted of earlier hints that Apple and Facebook could work more closely together. Cook said to "stay tuned" for news Apple will do more with Facebook.
Visit AppleInsider's D10 archive for more of Cook's comments and ongoing coverage of the conference.
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10 Comments
Now that Facebook's IPO didn't go so well, they may no longer think they are the second coming, and may be more willing to negotiate with other companies on reasonable terms.
Facebook will only negotiate if Apple can leverage mobile sharing of music better and faster than they can. Even then, they are now in it for long haul now that they are public. Being beholden upon Apple is no more attractive to them than it was for Steve Jobs by other companies technologies. That lesson from Apple success has been understood by Google (whose founders he mentored) and I think now Facebook.
Given that Facebook just plugged low hanging fruit of the social photo hole, I bet music is now the top priority. That will be harder due to licensing in which Apple and Amazon have huge lead. Even Google has not caught up in that regard,
For the best social integration they could add hardware Facebook button on the left from the Home button, and Twitter button on the right. :)
Please give an option to NOT have social integration. For me it just clutters the screen.
Yeah. Apple needs to kill Ping and Google needs to kill Buzz 2... I mean Google+.
Ghost towns, both.