With the Apple CEO Tim Cook having hinted at the D10 conference in May that Apple might pull the plug on its music-centric social network Ping, the company has now revealed in a rather quiet Wednesday announcement that the project will be axed completely on September 30.

It was close on the heels of Apple's September 12 press event - which witnessed the unveiling of the iPhone 5, new iPod models, and the `iTunes 7' launch - that the company disclosed, in a message in the iTunes' Ping section, that it has stopped accepting new members to the Ping service.

However, the iTunes users who are presently the members of Ping - which has hardly been updated ever since its 2010 launch with more than one million members in 23 countries - can avail the music-sharing service till its September-end date for a complete shut down.

Although Apple's Ping service - which essentially is a software-based, music-oriented social networking and discovery system service that works in tandem with iTunes - did receive some rave reviews at its launch, it apparently failed to take off as expected because it lacked true integration with Facebook and other social networks.

Admitting that Apple's Ping service had failed, Cook had said in a May statement: "I think the customer voted and said this isn't something I want to put a lot of energy into"; and also added alongside that "Apple doesn't need to have a social network."