Apple Makes Music Social Network

Written by Pat's Papers | Thursday, 2 September 2010 5:30 AM

Steve Jobs didn’t announce anything groundbreaking yesterday, says the San Francisco Chronicle, but he did unveil a series of improvements to existing products that “signaled a renewed push by Apple to compete in the living room and remain dominant in portable media players.” The price of Apple TV dropped from $229 to $99, making it more competitive. And in four weeks, customers will be able to stream from Netflix as well as the currently available content from Apple, ABC and Fox.

In addition, Jobs introduced Ping, a music-based social network that he described as “Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes.” The social network, which will be available with an iTunes upgrade, will let users follow both friends and artists and see what they’re listening to. Jobs also announced that all incarnations of the iPod have been tweaked and improved. For example, the iPod Touch received many features from the iPhone 4; the Nano lost its click wheel and the Shuffle reverted back to its square size.

Scroll down to hear Jobs describe the new Apple TV: