Apple Music Connect Pulls a Ping ⇥ macrumors.com

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

Apple today announced that its Apple Music Connect social platform for artists is in the process of shutting down, suffering the same fate as Ping, the company’s previous social network for music removed from iTunes in October 2012.

In a letter shared with artists, Apple said artists will no longer be able to post to Connect as of today, with the feature now removed from artist pages and the “For You” tab in Apple Music. Apple says all previously uploaded Connect content will remain searchable in Apple Music until May 24, 2019.

Connect was a ghost town within the first ninety days of Apple Music’s launch. When they demoted it a couple of years ago from having its own button in the tab bar to something that appears below everything else on the For You page and any artist’s page, that was a pretty clear signal that it was on its way out. I’m surprised it took this long, frankly.

Aside from Connect, I think Apple Music’s social features have been fairly successful. I check out what the users I follow have been listening to all the time in the For You section, and I like the new Friends Mix added a few months ago. I’ve even noticed a better selection of user-created playlists. I would love to see continued investment and promotion of these more passive social features, rather than another attempt to create a Twitter-but-for-music social network.