Weekly Poll: Is iTunes Succumbing to Feature Bloat?

Whenever Apple announces a new feature or application update, there’s always a huge amount of commotion and furious opinion sharing. iTunes Ping was one such feature addition, aiming to broaden iTunes into a social network for music.

I think Apple is really starting to stretch the limits of what iTunes is capable of. What started as a simple application for collating your music library now stores TV Shows, Movies, and Podcasts as well, is a full-fledged music and video store, your iPod/iPhone/iPad sync tool, your Apple TV counterpart, an App Store, online radio player, and – now – a social network as well. Phew!

Almost all the software tools I love and use every day on the Mac succeed because they do one thing remarkably well. Simplicity is the absolute key for a successful piece of software, and Apple themselves know this. Most of their software for the Mac and iOS leaves out many features that are packed in by competitors (consider the one-button simplicity of the iPhone camera app, for instance).

My question for you today centres around your thoughts on iTunes Ping. Is this a valuable service for music lovers, or have Apple finally succumbed to the perils of feature-bloat?