Where to start? To the uninitiated, Apple has essentially created their own self contained social network with iTunes Ping. iTunes Music Store users can now follow friends and artists, a la Twitter or Facebook and share their favorite songs and albums. On the surface, it seems like a logical plan for Apple to push themselves into a new field and continue to iterate the iTunes world. However, there are many flaws with the service under the surface.

I, like many people, love to talk about music and debate different tastes with my friends. However, I don’t find much use for Ping in it’s current set of features. In a very Apple-like move, the service is locked into the iTunes desktop software. If they are trying to build a social network from the ground up in 2010, why WHY on Earth do you lock it down to just the in-club of existing users. I think this walled garden of Ping, which is even more a set away from Facebook’s walled garden, will be a major blow to their growth. If you are looking to grow the network, it must be sharable with outsiders. Apple should really work on a web based version of this service to accompany the in-software version.

Secondly, actually posting to your own profile is too many steps to be useful. I should be able to like and post albums right from my own library. If I have a music blog (which I have considered starting), I should be able to import the RSS feed from that to my Ping. On the reverse, I should be able to get a feed of my latest Ping posts into other services and sites. Right now, with this lack of somewhat basic, important functionality, the service is acting like a way for me to sell iTunes songs to my friends (just without any kickbacks). There should be more incentive, or some sort of easier recognizable gratification for using the service by sharing my favorite songs.

Right now, Ping is too closed in and lacking too much functionality for me to actually take advantage of it. Which leads me to my last point: where does it get too be too many social networks to manage? iTunes Ping is just another feed to check, another Inbox. As is the problem with any service: if your friends you actually care about and maintain relationships with, then what good is another service? This was the downfall (among other things) of Google Buzz. Sure, it’s only been out for a few days, but I really don’t see Ping taking off as much as Apple is hoping it to be. We’ll see though.

I’m going to keep trying it out for a little while to get a better opinion, so you can follow me on Ping over here.

P.S. – Don’t get me started on the new iTunes icon or the new interface icons…

You may also remember Ping, the Chinese food delivery boy, from Seinfeld. Also: golf clubs

Mr. Jobs has once again delivered the newest iPhone and related goodies from the mountain top today. If you had been following the Gizmodo-stolen-phone-gate, the new iPhone announcement does not come as a huge surprise. However, unlike most Apple announcements, this doesn’t stir me quite like other new products have. Unlike the iPad unveiling, which gave me strong emotions both ways about what it actually is and does, the iPhone 4 has left me a bit undecided. Basically with iPhone 4 you have:

New case design – The new case design is pretty slick. It calls back more to the original iPhone from 2007 with the flat back. I feel it is much better looking design than the previous iPhone 3G and 3GS.

High resolution screen – The 3.5in screen has been bumped from 320×480 to 640×960. That is huge. This is the only new feature that I would greatly welcome. This will be even better for reading long text. I am also curious as to how this will affect mobile web design. Should designers not use pixels at all for units of measurement? Stick to percentage and EMs? I am curious to see how this plays out.

HD video recording – I feel this is just a marketing move to keep up with competition. Yea, it’s HD 720p video it’s shooting, but remember its all through a tiny pinhole of a lens. Megapixels and resolution only matter to a certain point, the lens is a huge factor in cameras.

FaceTime video calling and front facing camera – Yeah, its the future alright. I actually think this would be of value at some point in time. Though people wouldn’t use this for every single call, there is still a lot of potential in having a handheld video phone call. However, it would be pretty useless if it only is able to call other iPhone 4 owners. That greatly reduces it’s value. Hopefully the Skype app will be able to use the front facing camera at some point.

Overall, while the new high res screen and case design are amazing, the features I care more about are in the software. The renamed iOS 4 will be a good upgrade when that comes up. It will be cleaning up a lot of little things that should have been there all along, such as the home screen folders, unified email inbox, and a few other things. The major change will be the multitasking, which I am very pleased about. Just being able to leave Last.FM (yes I use that instead of Pandora, I’m weird) open while checking my tweets or email will be welcomed. One intangible thing that I will look for are the little polishes throughout the system. This is one thing Apple really excels in over any other tech company. Major OS updates, be it Mac OS X or iOS, bring a list of new features to help sell the product, but it’s the little things that really make it shine.

Now, this goes completely without saying anything about AT&T. I’m a Verizon user, and based on everything I’m told about AT&T, it’s not amazing. iPhone 4 remains an AT&T exclusive, unfortunately. My dilemma over this will be saved a for future blog post.

As a last note, I am glad they decided to rename the mobile OS to iOS. From the iPhone, iPod, to the iPad, it makes sense to call it a certain name, since they are all running basically the same operating system. In the past, I referred to the Apple devices as “iTouch”, but it feels better to have a official canonized name now.

Testing 1, 2, 3.

Is this thing on?