Apple's Jobs says 'onerous terms' kept Facebook ties out of Ping
Apple's new music-related social network, Ping, is not tied in to Facebook because the website demanded "onerous terms" that Steve Jobs said his company could not agree to.
Jobs spoke with Kara Swisher of BoomTown after Wednesday's event, and revealed that Apple talked to Facebook about potential partnerships related to Ping. While the discussions did not result in a deal, there is plenty of evidence that Facebook connectivity was likely a part of Ping until it was pulled before launch.
Jobs said the terms demanded by Facebook were ones that his company could not sign off on. However, some have spotted evidence of Facebook Connect compatibility within Ping, leading Cult of Mac to conclude that "Facebook's terms only became onerous at the last minute."
Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing at Apple, even said in an interview Wednesday that Ping would allow users to use Facebook to find their friends.
Executives at Facebook also anonymously shared with Swisher their frustration that Ping's layout and blue color scheme resembles Facebook. However, the social networking site's official statement made no such comments.
"Facebook believes in connecting people with their interests and we've partnered with innovative developers around the world who share this vision," the company said. "Facebook and Apple have cooperated successfully in the past to offer people great social experiences and we look forward to doing so in the future."
Despite the supposed fallout with Facebook, Jobs is reportedly very excited about Ping, and said he believes it could become the most significant product announced during Wednesday's keynote. Other products introduced included the new Apple TV and an all-new iPod lineup.
Peter Kafka of MediaMemo, who correctly reported that the new iTunes would be "social, not streaming," speculated that Apple could create an open API for Ping. That strategy would allow Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites to integrate into the new music-centric service from Apple.
Jobs spoke with Kara Swisher of BoomTown after Wednesday's event, and revealed that Apple talked to Facebook about potential partnerships related to Ping. While the discussions did not result in a deal, there is plenty of evidence that Facebook connectivity was likely a part of Ping until it was pulled before launch.
Jobs said the terms demanded by Facebook were ones that his company could not sign off on. However, some have spotted evidence of Facebook Connect compatibility within Ping, leading Cult of Mac to conclude that "Facebook's terms only became onerous at the last minute."
Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing at Apple, even said in an interview Wednesday that Ping would allow users to use Facebook to find their friends.
Executives at Facebook also anonymously shared with Swisher their frustration that Ping's layout and blue color scheme resembles Facebook. However, the social networking site's official statement made no such comments.
"Facebook believes in connecting people with their interests and we've partnered with innovative developers around the world who share this vision," the company said. "Facebook and Apple have cooperated successfully in the past to offer people great social experiences and we look forward to doing so in the future."
Despite the supposed fallout with Facebook, Jobs is reportedly very excited about Ping, and said he believes it could become the most significant product announced during Wednesday's keynote. Other products introduced included the new Apple TV and an all-new iPod lineup.
Peter Kafka of MediaMemo, who correctly reported that the new iTunes would be "social, not streaming," speculated that Apple could create an open API for Ping. That strategy would allow Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites to integrate into the new music-centric service from Apple.
Comments
In another five years Facebook will be just another MySpace.
One can only hope.
Facebooks imposes onerous demands, yet its Apple that has to be 'more open'?
Please. "Open" to Facebook means 'open your wallet and open your personal information to us.'
Reminds me of the 'Apple isn't 'open' because it doesn't support proprietary Flash' meme.
One can only hope.
Facebook and other social networks are for the hopelessly neurotic and feedback vampires.
Typical Apple lately. Instead of using the Skype or AIM to get facetime going, we have to use Apple's proprietary format which works on nothing but other iPhone 4's on Wi Fi so it's useless right now.
We had to use Quicktime format for the old Apple TV which meant hacking or iTunes only for the most part.
Flash was no good so now we have iPhones and iPads that can't display websites until they write Apple compatible versions.
Now we have this Bing, or Ping or Pong whatever and it will be useless until the world flips over to it.
No doubt about it. Apple has set us down a path that will make the monopoly of Microsoft look like a drop in the bucket. Steve Jobs will stop short of nothing but world domination. And he intends to do this with his niche market.
Sorry. Steve, you have lost your mind.
As someone who works with 3 arts groups that sell their music on iTunes, I'm very interested in how Ping works. Apparently a lot of other classical musicians are as well - a lot of my twitter contacts are asking the same question: How do we create an artist's profile on Ping?
Most of us small ensembles have to use an aggregator service to get onto iTunes. If Ping doesn't allow us to create our profiles then this won't be useful to us at all. So far there it's an unanswered question.
Bruce
one can only hope.
+1
As someone who works with 3 arts groups that sell their music on iTunes, I'm very interested in how Ping works. Apparently a lot of other classical musicians are as well - a lot of my twitter contacts are asking the same question: How do we create an artist's profile on Ping?
Most of us small ensembles have to use an aggregator service to get onto iTunes. If Ping doesn't allow us to create our profiles then this won't be useful to us at all. So far there it's an unanswered question.
Bruce
Any musician who doesn't immediately set up a strong Ping presence is a fool.
So Steve Jobs steers facebook now? Wow, this guy has a lot of power. Or does he?
Typical Apple lately. Instead of using the Skype or AIM to get facetime going, we have to use Apple's proprietary format which works on nothing but other iPhone 4's on Wi Fi so it's useless right now.
We had to use Quicktime format for the old Apple TV which meant hacking or iTunes only for the most part.
Flash was no good so now we have iPhones and iPads that can't display websites until they write Apple compatible versions.
Now we have this Bing, or Ping or Pong whatever and it will be useless until the world flips over to it.
No doubt about it. Apple has set us down a path that will make the monopoly of Microsoft look like a drop in the bucket. Steve Jobs will stop short of nothing but world domination. And he intends to do this with his niche market.
Sorry. Steve, you have lost your mind.
I'm going to call troll on this one, but just in case, your post is just a big vat of wrong.
Steve Jobs is obviously not steering Facebook. Apple wanted to work together, Facebook would only do it under certain conditions that Apple wouldn't agree to, likely involving privacy (or lack thereof).
Skype and AIM are both closed and proprietary. Lacking an open standard to use, Apple created their own, and it's only a matter of time before others catch on. The Wi-Fi restriction was put in place by carriers, not Apple.
Old TV, new TV, all iPods and iOS devices use H.264 primarily, which is not a QuickTime-only format. Far from it, it's the most widely-used format for legitimate media. The formats you seem to be implying you want are what 100% of pirated media comes in.
You have Flash and "Apple compatible" the wrong way around. What's Apple-compatible is everyone-compatible, what's Flash-compatible will only ever work with systems that have the latest version of Flash.
So Steve Jobs steers facebook now? Wow, this guy has a lot of power. Or does he?
Typical Apple lately. Instead of using the Skype or AIM to get facetime going, we have to use Apple's proprietary format which works on nothing but other iPhone 4's on Wi Fi so it's useless right now.
We had to use Quicktime format for the old Apple TV which meant hacking or iTunes only for the most part.
Flash was no good so now we have iPhones and iPads that can't display websites until they write Apple compatible versions.
Now we have this Bing, or Ping or Pong whatever and it will be useless until the world flips over to it.
No doubt about it. Apple has set us down a path that will make the monopoly of Microsoft look like a drop in the bucket. Steve Jobs will stop short of nothing but world domination. And he intends to do this with his niche market.
Sorry. Steve, you have lost your mind.
You're absolutely right, and their financial performance has been shit too.
/SARCASM
Typical Apple lately. Instead of using the Skype or AIM to get facetime going, we have to use Apple's proprietary format which works on nothing but other iPhone 4's on Wi Fi so it's useless right now.
Skype isn't open, Apple would have had to license it, as would everyone else who wanted to interoperate. AIM, MSN video chat and others aren't open either.
Facetime is MPEG-4 clips wired together. The protocol streams clip after consecutive clip, choosing a higher or lower bandwidth version of the next clip based on latency. That's why people with VLC or other MPEG-4 video viewers were able to see short segments of the live video stream. It won't be long before you see support for the full protocol in video players.
Feel free to give Apple crap for things they deserve crap for. This isn't one of them.
So Steve Jobs steers facebook now? Wow, this guy has a lot of power. Or does he?
Typical Apple lately. Instead of using the Skype or AIM to get facetime going, we have to use Apple's proprietary format which works on nothing but other iPhone 4's on Wi Fi so it's useless right now.
Flash was no good so now we have iPhones and iPads that can't display websites until they write Apple compatible versions.
Have you seen the videos circulating of the latest Flash on Android? "seconds/frame" rather than frames/sec. when it comes up at all.
and I recall Steve saying facetime was going to be freely available (or available free?) to other companies, no?
Originally Posted by OnePotato
In another five years Facebook will be just another MySpace.
From your keyboard to God's inbox.
Apple's new music-related social network, Ping, is not tied in to Facebook because the website demanded "onerous terms" that Steve Jobs said his company could not agree to....
Personally, I'd rather see Apple go it alone than integrate Facebook.
That being said, Ping sucks and I won't be using it. Check out this description of Ping activation, it's enough to make you laugh and wince at the same time.
http://technologme.com/using-ping-on-itunes-10/2607/
It's so limiting it's practically insulting. The gender thing is *defintitely* insulting. There are a surprising number of folks who aren't either "male" or "female" for those who don't know. Besides that, there are many many more that don't particularly want to give out that information regardless. On top of all the silly user restrictions there is the fact that you *must* use name on the credit card of the account for your user name.
FAIL.
So Steve Jobs steers facebook now? Wow, this guy has a lot of power. Or does he?
Typical Apple lately. Instead of using the Skype or AIM to get facetime going, we have to use Apple's proprietary format which works on nothing but other iPhone 4's on Wi Fi so it's useless right now.
We had to use Quicktime format for the old Apple TV which meant hacking or iTunes only for the most part.
Flash was no good so now we have iPhones and iPads that can't display websites until they write Apple compatible versions.
Now we have this Bing, or Ping or Pong whatever and it will be useless until the world flips over to it.
No doubt about it. Apple has set us down a path that will make the monopoly of Microsoft look like a drop in the bucket. Steve Jobs will stop short of nothing but world domination. And he intends to do this with his niche market.
Sorry. Steve, you have lost your mind.
You complain that apple is using proprtietary video streaming technology and then suggest that something as closed as skype or aim should be used as a basis for this? Maybe you should go the whole hog and say it should work with the ever open, every apple friendly MSN?
Flash and web sites - why will you not stop banging on about this?! - It's not about websites being made "apple compatible" it's about web sites being professionally, accessibly coded with alternative content delivery whatever the platform. It's the way modern, professional sites should be developed.
The old apple TV played mp3, avi, m4p, mov and streamed content. it did it;s job just great and sold over 6 million units. If you didn't like yours, or it wasn't fit for purpose, you should have returned it. Oh, wait - you probably never owned one?
Ping does what it says it will do, today, 24 hours after it was launched. I'm following a few acts, already linked up with a few friends. It's free, it's easy to use and it's a bit of fun.
What on EARTH do you have to complain about. Don't like it - use another service, buy another company's products.
Or maybe you just like to complain.
A lot.
In another five years Facebook will be just another MySpace.
... and Apple might well be just another 'Apple' circa 1996/struggling company making poor decisions - Who Really Knows?