Edible Apple

Apple last week unveiled iTunes 10, and curious monochrome UI changes aside, the biggest new aspect of iTunes is Ping, Apple’s take on social networking for music. Ping, which has already attracted over 1 million users since the new iTunes became available for download, allows users to get details about their favorite artists, share musical interests with friends, and discover new music. That said, one might reasonably assume that Facebook integration of some sort would work just swimmingly with such a service. As it turns out, Apple did, in fact, conduct talks with Facebook execs but the two sides were ultimately unable to come to a mutually beneficial agreement.

Speaking to Kara Swisher of All Things D, Apple CEO Steve Jobs explained that talks with Facebook went nowhere because Facebook wanted “onerous terms that we could not agree to.”

When it comes to onerous terms, Apple’s usually on the giving end of things.

Interestingly, though, Jobs subsequently told Swisher that Ping could very well be “the most significant thing” to come out of last week’s slew of announcements.

One final note – Apple and Facebook have cooperated in the past. If you remember, iPhoto ’09 brought with it a pretty sleek implementation of Facebook integration that allows users to effortlessly export uploaded photos, tagged and all, to their Facebook account. Similarly, users can use tagged photos on their Facebook account to tag photos of friends on iPhoto.