Tim Cook Says Apple Might Kill Ping, “Stay tuned” on Deeper Facebook Integration

When you think of a company like Apple, a lot of things come to mind: They’ve shown profound innovation on a number of levels, with their most prominent successes coming in the realm of the devices we use all day long… But everyone is talking about social these days, and so it was interesting to listen to Tim Cooks comments during the All Things D D10 conference on Tuesday. During the talk, Cook hinted about the future of Ping (it’s not good) as well as the possibility of deeper integration of Facebook in the iOS platform.

It’s great to hear that Facebook might join Twitter in being thoroughly baked into the iPhone/iPad OS, but wouldn’t it have been great if Cook had offered more specifics… As it stands, he simply conveyed that Apple and Facebook enjoy a “very solid” relationship with one another and that he thinks the two tech giants could have more to do with each other… In addition to hinting at more interplay in the future, Cook said that Apple doesn’t need to own a social network; instead, they just need to BE social—something he thinks is currently being somewhat accomplished by services like Game Center and iMessage.

The Game Center reference might seem out of place, but it’s hard to argue with the claim when you consider recent findings of a survey that asked users why they play mobile games in the first place.

So, will anyone actually miss Ping if it goes the way of other long-forgotten social networks? And is Facebook the future for Apple staying current in the social world? While Cook’s comments on social at the D10 conference didn’t offer a lot of details, it’s clear that Apple is thinking just like the rest of the tech world in recognizing social as the wave of the future.

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Devin Wieland

 

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