Apple Eradicates Ping Spam, Adds UI Enhancements

Soon after its official unveiling last week, Ping was flooded with spam containing links to phony surveys, fake accounts akin to Apple executives, and more.

Apple was faced with having to work hard and remove the Ping spam on Labor Day, in order to have the service curated ASAP.

By Monday, the spam was removed from the service.

Fake accounts of Apple executives, including CEO Steve Jobs and designer Jonathan Ive were also wiped on by Monday.

While they were at it, Apple also made some minor tweaks to the Ping interface, adding "back" and "forward" buttons for a better navigation of the service, according to a report.

During the September 1 event in San Francisco, Apple’s chief executive officer touted Ping as a combination between Facebook and Twitter with a focus on music.

The service is accessible solely through iTunes, the company’s proprietary digital media player application, used for playing and organizing digital music and video files.

“iTunes Ping lets you post your thoughts and opinions, your favorite albums and songs, the music you’ve downloaded from iTunes, plus view concert listings and tell your friends which concerts you plan to attend,” the company stated in a press release.

Following its introduction, Apple announced that in less than 48 hours more than one million users had joined Ping.

“One-third of the people who have downloaded iTunes 10 have joined Ping,“ said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services.

“As many more people download iTunes 10 in the coming weeks, we expect the Ping community to continue growing,” he added.

Another new addition to iTunes 10 is AirPlay, which enables wireless music playback on remote speakers using Apple’s AirPort Express base station.

AirPlay also works without AirPort Express, when the software detects an AirPlay-supported speaker system, including those from Bowers & Wilkins, JBL, Denon and iHome, Apple said.

The latter was actually the first to advertise one such product.