Apple CEO Tim Cook for More Social Integration: May Kill Off Ping

During the D10 conference, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook found himself in the hotseat and in response to a question he said, “Apple doesn’t have to own a social network. But does Apple have to be social? Yes.” He even admitted that the company might choose to stop its Ping social music discovery service which might indicate something else taking its place. In addition to that, Cook used the deep integration of Twitter in iOS 5 as an example for what might be coming in the OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion that is said to debut next month at the company’s WWDC 2012.

Additionally, he also touted iMessage and Game Center as services that could be categorized as social. When people continued to question Cook about Ping, he admitted that he was trying to avoid the issue but finally said that Apple “tried Ping” but customers apparently have made their thoughts about it clear so the company didn’t want to “put a lot of energy into” it. As for getting rid of it, he said, “Will we kill it? I don’t know. We’ll look at that.” What do you think about Ping? Is that something you’ll miss if it’s gone?