We had gone on record saying that Ping, Apple’s music-oriented social networking service, was actually the most significant product launched by Apple at its event earlier this month (where the new iPods tended to overshadow everything else) and a recent update by Apple confirms what we felt. One of the shortcomings of Ping when it was released was that it restricted one to the tunes one had bought from the iTunes Store, locking one in to the store as it were. Well, the new update will let users share what they are listening to, not just from what they have bought from the iTunes’ store, but also what is in their iTunes libraries. And that should make it a whole lot more social, as you can share whatever music you are listening to on your computer (as long as you have transferred it to iTunes – something all iPod users do). Mind you, we are still upset that we cannot use it in India. Not fair, Apple, we have got songs in our iTunes libraries too! Those who can use Ping can get it by updating their iTunes to version 10.0.1 from within iTunes or by downloading it from here.
Personally I do not care much for the Ping sidebar. I would much rather have the Genius sidebar giving me recommendations based on music I already have in my library. Now, I do not know if it is just me, but I have already seen quite a few negative remarks about the Ping bar in iTunes.