Facebook connect for Ping made a very brief appearance during Steve Jobs’ iTunes 10 demo and some early users were able to catch (and use) it to find friends on Apple’s new social music network. However, a short time later the Facebook integration was missing. What happened?

As it turns out, Apple was indeed having talks with Facebook to integrate the services on an unspecified level. We have to assume the ability to search and find friends as an absolute minimum requirement for the paring of the two companies (though wouldn’t it be great if Apple created its own client that integrated with Facebook and iTunes? Hey, one can dream).

Where Steve apparently ran into trouble was with Facebook having concerns over the volume of users using Ping as Facebook feared it could cause performance issues (hmm.. see 1 million Ping users in 48 hours) and asked for, in Steve’s words:

“Onerous terms that we could not agree to.”

What that means is that Facebook wanted something; too much control, too much say, who knows, but Steve was not happy. Will be see a Facebook Connect feature return in Ping’s future? I am sure we will but it doesn’t look like Apple isn’t having a hard time signing up users in the meantime.

[via All Things D]

iTunes Ping- Where is the Facebook Integration? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Back in late June/early July, I reviewed an app called Wi-Fi Sync for jailbroken iPhones. You can find my revised version of the review here. Originally this seemed like a pretty neat app. It’s a bit pricey for what it does, but it did it well.

Now I’ve been having several issues with iTunes over the past 2 months. I couldn’t restore or upgrade firmware (it would hang up at the very end and leave all my devices in never ending recovery loops). To my dismay, it also broke backups within iTunes. I found this out after I wiped one of my devices and then noticed my last backup had been 2 months earlier. In frustration, a buddy on Twitter (@snoslicer8) asked if I by chance had Wi-Fi Sync installed. And without a doubt, that was the problem.

Needless to say, click along to see how to fix these issues if you’re having problems with iTunes and you’ve previously downloaded W-Fi Sync. Odds are, it’s the culprit.

You’ll need to complete these steps exactly in order. If you have already uninstalled Wi-Fi Sync and that didn’t seem to solve the problem, re-install it and do these steps completely in order. Odds are you didn’t complete the first step before uninstalling and that can cause your backups to still epically fail. So after you re-install, reboot your Mac before continuing.

*Side note: I am on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.4). I do not know if this effects previous versions of Mac or PC. If you know or have any input, please feel free to leave it in the comments for future users who may have the issue.

Re-enable backups via Wi-Fi Sync

This is why I said to re-install if you had already uninstalled. You’ll see the icon for Wi-Fi Sync in your top taskbar, it looks like a tiny iPhone like below.

Click that icon to get a drop down menu, you’ll see one like the one below. If disable device backups is checked, UNCHECK it. For me, device backups were disabled by default. If you don’t do this before uninstalling, you will still have issues with backups even after uninstalling.

Only after you’ve done this, will you be good to uninstall.

Uninstall Wi-Fi Sync

A lot of users were wondering how to uninstall Wi-Fi Sync. I’m not quite sure why the developer did not include the uninstaller in the bundle, but you’ll have to go here to download the uninstaller for Mac. Download that and run the terminal app. It may prompt you to enter your admin password.

Reboot your Mac

After you reboot, your problems should be solved. To make sure, simply open iTunes, connect one of your iDevices and sync it. It should saying backing up, which it didn’t say before. Or another way to know is after you sync, go to iTunes —> Preferences –> Devices and look to see if you have a new backup. If you do, you should be good to go. If you are still having issues, leave a comment below and we’ll try and help you out.

Thanks to @snoslicer8 for helping me out with this one! And as my revised review states, I can’t recommend this app until the developer does something about this. This is app is not worth paying for when it breaks core functionality in iTunes. So until it’s resolved, I can’t recommend anyone pay money for this application. I tried contacting the developer over 2 weeks ago to no response. I attempted to contact him on Twitter as well, to no avail. I can’t seem to find a workaround other that completely uninstalling the app, and the issue seems pretty prevalent in several forums and boards. If anyone else found another solution, let us know!

Wi-Fi Sync for Jailbroken iPhones – how to fix what it breaks in iTunes is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

While Steve Jobs and Apple.com (the main US version of the site) say iOS 4.1 for iPhone and iPod touch is coming sometime “next week”, Apple.com/uk is cheeky enough to put a date on it — Wednesday, September 8.

Download the iOS 4.1 Software Update. Available on 8 September.

Mistake or accident, rubbish or reveal, what do you think?

[Apple.com/uk/ via Engadget, thanks Phil!]

Apple.com/uk says iOS 4.1 coming September 8 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

48 hours after Apple introduced Ping, their new social music network, they’ve announced 1 million users already signed on.

"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."

Ping lets you follow your favorite artists such as Lady Gaga, Coldplay, U2, Jack Johnson, Yo-Yo Ma and more, to see what they're up to, check out photos and videos they've posted, see their tour dates and read comments about other artists and albums they're listening to. In addition, you can post your thoughts and opinions, your favorite albums and songs, the music you've downloaded from iTunes® and the concerts you plan to attend.

Several of us here at TiPb are among them:

• Rene Ritchie
• Chad Garrett
• Jeremy Sikora
• Leanna Lofte
• Allyson Kazmucha

Georgia is just saying “no”.

What about you? If you’ve joined Ping, drop your profile link in the comments below so we can all check it out. If not, why not?

[Apple PR]

Apple announces 1 million Ping users in 48 hours is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog