Hands on with iTunes Ping Playlist
Another feature that just should have been in there from the start. Seriously, what was Apple thinking when it rolled out a social network for music that was almost completely devoid of social? Nevertheless, a few first day hiccups aside, Cupertino seems to have done a pretty good job in bringing this particular function to market.
As this story when to press, you couldn’t find any mention of playlists on Apple’s official Ping landing page, but it’s available nonetheless. Assuming you’ve already got an account — a few clicks and your Apple ID are all that’s needed — there are two ways to make a list in Ping.
Manually, on the iTunes Store
Open iTunes and bring up the iTunes Store. Log into your Ping account and then scroll down to find (lower right) + click the Ping Playlists link.
Now, simply add, and this is a bit of a pain, songs one at a time from the vast iTunes Music Store. Yes, you can search for and preview tracks, but this is a slow process that’s made a bit slower by timeouts and network errors — something that will go away as Apple titrates their service.
Import directly from your Mac
Working within your own library and creating a playlist is much easier. Further, once you’ve added a playlist to Ping it can be fattened up with selections in iTunes Store that aren’t on your Mac.
Just click the right arrow that pops when an iTunes playlist on your Mac has been selected, and off you go.
As you can see in the image above, yes, you can gift your lists, which is a pretty nifty feature, especially for those of us who haven’t done (any?) of their shopping yet…
Are you liking Ping Playlists?
