Apple's Jobs says 'onerous terms' kept Facebook ties out of Ping - Page 2

I told you before, I am not Techstud, however I did agree with many of his posts back in the day. I found his lack of hero worship most refreshing.

I do have a secret identity. Keep guessing.

You can use AIM for iChat. What makes it so wrong to use it for Facetime?

Of course, I can use flash on a real mac and it's TERRIBLY WRONG to have it on a mobile device.

My question is why only music-related for Ping? Why not multi-media? After all Apple also sell movies and books in iTunes, does it not?

Apple will soon outsell all CD music combined on itunes (that's from other sources). Apple will get to mine the data on just what the music buyers are listening to(and recommending their friends listen to). THAT will define a whole new metric that the music industry will use to determine modern tastes in music, and act accordingly. I don't recommend my play lists to anyone, except my son, who is in the biz, but can see the value of doing so through itunes and friends you would like to share music with. Apple itunes will become the new "Gallup Poll" of the music industry. (I'll bet Google is having a hissy-fit on this one, since they see themselves as the data-mining go-to guys for the known universe).

I bet Apple's FaceTime had nothing to do with this. NOT!

You betcha. Why can't I watch porn on my Apple TV? Cause it doesn't support .ram files. But my computer can play them.

This is why I am against iOS4. Give me a real MAC that can do anything. If the Real Player company wants to write software for the Mac it's THEIR business. With iOS4 you have to get past the gatekeeper. The same gatekeeper that wont allow a Playboy App but allowed the shake the baby to death app.

I know I wont win any arguments here over porn. I bet most of the forum here wouldn't know what to do with a woman if they had one naked right in front of them.

So Apple would have to license it. So what? Why is it not okay for Apple to pay another company for existing widely used technology? I know Flash is terrible and evil, but do you and the AI community have anything against Skype and AIM??

I will feel free to give Apple crap so long as they keep telling me what I may and may not do.

I signed up to take a look at it, decided it was too tied to FaceBook (hate it,) and too damn crappy/spammy (waste of time.) Unfortunately I then discovered I couldn't "un-sign up" (at least I haven't figured out how to get completely unencumbered yet.) Although I feel confident my privacy is secure (unlike with FB or MS et al.)
It looks fine and all but basically it's another fricking FaceBook/MySpace spam machine that I don't care to be involved with. Very Un-Apple like.
I had hoped Apple would find the right level of privacy/value, but this seems elusive in the social media space.
We need an open source, user manageable, transparent yet secure "social media" system, with a user-friendly monetization model. Is this so hard? Perhaps I have to do it?

My guess it that Facebook wanted full access and rights to all Ping users data.

As a stockholder, I don't like to hear others saying things like "buy another company's products." I assume there are other stock holders here as well who would grudgingly agree with me.

If Apple ever wants to get out of the niche market, they need to play nice with others, like they used to do when they were beaten down by Microsoft ten years ago. I don't think Apple is big enough yet to start forcing users to do things their way. They are still the tail that tries to wag the dog.

And for your information I don't just like to complain. But I do like to tell the truth.

The media blowing something out proportion and making an issue where non exists (ring any bells?) should not become a company's problem - it's time for an hysterical media to be bought back down to size. Pundits, analysts and experts who spout utter FUD and have the bleeting masses believing everything they're told.

Remember when the internet was evil and the root of all perversion and crime in society?
Remember when video games made children violent?
Remember when electricity was dangerous and leaked?!
Remember when the internal combustion engine was going to put us all out of work?

Luddites, critics and 'experts' every step of the way. We look back a century and laugh and still learn nothing.

It's called progress, change. Move it with it, or become irrelevant. I remember people on sites such as these decrying the ipod when it was first announced, and the imac - it'll never work because it lacks (insert dying feature here - eg. ADB port, floppy drive). Now we've got it with the iPad, PING etc. etc.

The current world media seem to be the new spanish inquisition - judge, jury and executioner with no one able to stand up to them.

It's very worrying - they control opinion and commercial markets more than any individual company which is vilified by them.

You can disable Ping by going to your iTunes account preferences. It says so right there in your Ping profile page when you edit your profile.

If you have stock, you must have faith in the company and it's products and services or you would sell the stock.

You don't like to tell the truth, you like to express your (often entirely unbalanced negative) opinions as fact. When from my reading of your posts over the last few weeks have no basis in fact or experience.

No arguments from me here - not sure how you stop it though.

Disable it under your ping settings. done.

It's not tied to facebook. At all.

Hence this topic...

Me either, but fanning the flames of their FUD is certainly not the way to go...

But you want to be able to tell Apple what they can and cannot do? (Add Skype/AIM compatiblility to Apple software)

Why don't you write your own code to do it?

Being forced to tell your gender *is* offensive to large amounts of people whether you believe it or not. By your commentary it seems that you aren't the most sophisticated person but your experience doesn't necessarily translate to the rest of the world. Gender matters a lot, especially online, especially in gaming.

Would it be offensive to you as a male (I presume again from your commentary), if you had to give your gender but were only given the option of "female" or "intersex"? How would you feel being forced to chose between two options, neither of which is accurate?

In any case, I'm not arguing that they should put up multiple gender choices (although it would be very progressive of them and send a very nice message). All I'm saying is that there should be a "don't want to say" or "other" or "null" choice in fields like this. Again, this is fairly standard stuff that was worked out on serious gaming boards years ago.

Lots of girls play online games, lots of them play as males so as to not be bothered. The feature should be there to not necessarily link your real life name and your real life gender with your account, just as the feature is there not to associate your home address or phone number with your account.

It's private information that's not necessary to the operation of the system that you are being forced to enter. The reasons they ask for it are entirely commercial and are not necessary for any other reason.

I get that you are okay with giving it to them, but you just can't speak for anyone else, and you don't seem to know anything of the background of this issue so I'm not going to even bother listening to you any more.

My posts have no basis in fact or experience? What, I have to have worked for Apple before I can have an opinion here?

From my experience, most of the people who post here are probably under 18 years old they way they argue and bicker. How much experience does one have to have before they are allowed to post here?

As far as facts are concerned, I don't have time to research and back up every point here. I am over 18 years old and I have to go to work sometime. I made some good points earlier and if you want to debate them, fine. But I doubt you do because I'll just embarrass you here.

So you know the terms Facebook demanded from Apple? I didn't realize you were there when Apple and Facebook chatted. If Facebook demanded that you kiss Zuckerberg's ass for them to work with your company, would you agree ?

This isn't gaming. Also, for the record I'm a first class honours graduate, have an MA in telecommunications administration, run a graphic design consultancy and love classical music. Not that this has anything to do with the subject at hand.


There are two legal definitions of gender on this planet. You are legally registered as one or the other. These are MALE and FEMALE. One of those two is apt to the legal status of every human being on the planet.


Again with the gaming parallels - this isn't gaming, its a music community. You do understand that? Why would you pretend to be a different gender on line, or fake your name in a networking system which is about your personal music taste - why the need to hide?


Yes, the reasons are commercial, it's about market research and target demographics. iTunes is a commercial venture - you do understand that? It's why this is opt-in. You don't like it- don't opt-in. You don't need to denigrate a fun service with perfectly understandable privacy settings.

And I'm not speaking "for everyone else", I'm speaking for myself - it's you who has taken offence on behalf of other people for a system you've never used, and even if you have, that you have less than 24 hours experience of.

I agree. But keep in mind this just launched and Apple may not have thought everything through. Provide them with this feedback.

For me, I think it's an issue because I could see not wanting to be bothered by creeps, and it's just information I might not want to give. Really all information should be optional.

For what it's worth though, you can at least change back and forth whenever you want.

Not at all, but having experience of the current topic of conversation helps. Ping is less than 24 hours old, you talk as though you have not signed up. You were not witness to the discussions between apple and facebook and therefore you cannot judge or call anything unacceptable or otherwise denigrate it based on rumor and call this "fact" or "truth". It is OPINION. Please understand the difference.


I'm not talking about "life" experience - age is irrelevant (i'm significantly older than 18 btw) - I'm talking about direct, practical, real world experience of the subject, service or product at hand. In this case NO ONE has enough experience to state as FACT or TRUTH any aspect of the future of this new facility.

Don't talk about "truth" or fact when you are expressing a personal opinion. Most users would accept that most of what is posted here is simply opinion, there's nothing wrong with that. My issue with you is that you mistake your opinion for fact.

thank goodness. sick of hearing about facebook, sick of dealing with facebook.

Actually, you can use any name you want. It defaults with the name fields filled out with the billing info on file, but you can change this.

Also think about this for a second...you don't need a credit card on file to have an iTunes store account. I don't. I just add credit to my account as needed in case someone gets access to my account, they can't rack up charges. Plus I usually get more gift cards than I can keep up with so there's little point in having my credit card on file with them.

When I was first setting up Ping last night there were two external friend finder services: Facebook Connect and Address Book.app. The take down of Facebook Connect is being reported far and wide but the friend finder via the Address Book.app is also missing today. Pure speculation: there is a problem with the friend finder for Ping that goes beyond any tiff between Facebook and Apple.

Did they really complain about the layout?? is there layout not just like myspace was?

I dunno, I like Ping.. It's nice to see a social netwrok about something besides stalking your ex-girlfriend.

It needs more features like a wall to psot on openly and the ability to aknowledge music that is in your iTunes as aposed to just in the iTunes store.. but it's only a day old.. I'm sure it will just get better over time

The fact that you're a troll has been obvious from the start ... but with each post you become more and more irrelevant. Where you used to be mildly entertaining .... now you are just becoming the boring, bumbling, pathetic buffoon you you used to be able to disguise. Your 15 minutes are up ....!

Uggh. Who needs another social network?

This will go the way of Google Me and Google Buzz. I'm sure somebody will use it. But I doubt it's going to catch on in any huge way.

The whole point of a social network is to well, be social. I'm going to use what my friends are using. If they are all on Facebook, that's where I'll be.

Theming it around music is both smart and stupid. Nice niche for the musically interested. Seems odd for the average user though. But I guess with iTunes, that was the easiest way for Apple to get its foot in the door.

I will concede though, that this could do some serious damage to MySpace.

Now I'm curious

Now that there is a nice rant that I can support. Good job!

FaceTime is to be published as an open standard, according to the intentions publicly stated by Apple. Skype, AIM, MSN all use closed, proprietary systems. If Apple got into bed with a closed/proprietary system you would have a field day.

Please stop going on about Flash - it isn't terrible or evil. No one has said so. It is not ready for mobile devices, it's unnecessarily processor intensive, makes machines run hot and drains battery life. It is not properly developed for a touch interface, nor was it ever intended for video delivery, and there are real world, already supported, non-html5 alternatives in place. Web developers should AS STANDARD provide alternative content for non-flash enabled clients, and always should have - better sites out there always have.

I have nothing against AIM or Skype - I love Skype. That is not the point. What do you have against Apple - why shouldn't they release something new instead of integrate with/licensing from a rival company? I thought you were a share holder - do you want to see high profit margins or not?

Yes, Apple is a commercial company. They exist to make money. That is not a bad thing. The consumer will always have choice, there are always alternative companies, alternative service providers.

The consumer is a powerful force, Apple is no more immune to their wrath than any other company. The fact is (yes fact, not opinion) that Apple's market share, product awareness and profit are all increasing.

They must be doing something right?

In my opinion the major mistake from apple in the last 24 hours is leaving blu-ray off the apple TV - i don't want blu-ray on my desktop/laptop - but to omit it from my HD television is nonsense - I shan't be purchasing a box that doesn't replace an existing box or bring any new functionality. Thats my opinion, I'm sure others will love it - but it's not for me. But I'm not about to scream and shout at Apple because they dared to make a product that doesn't appeal to me.

I can choose not to buy it and look for alternative solutions. Turns out there are other companies than Apple (or Microsoft for that matter) that I as a consumer can choose to purchase products and services from.

Dude.. its ONE DAY OLD. lol give it a bit of time to build.

My guess is that they want to ensure that all users are signed up to an iTunes account - otherwise, this doesn't become the cash cow they hope it is.

Not that I disagree with you, but why are you surprised at any of this. This is Apple, and they want you to stay in their ecosystem - both the good and the bad.

Nope - the professor read differently on line - what do we know just because we actually signed up?!

THANK you.

You do of course realize that Ping is pretty much the same as the social feature in Zune, that has been present since 2006.

then later on you say:


take some of your own advice. Why are you speaking for other people? If you do not like the terms, don't use the service. Check whatever sex you want. Who cares. People bitch about anything...it is impossible to not "offend" someone out there.

obvious troll is obvious