iTunes Expected to Be Retired After Over 18 Years

[steven36]

While it was initially reported that iTunes would live on in macOS 10.15, it now looks like the app will be retired, over 18 years after it was introduced by the late Steve Jobs at Macworld on January 9, 2001.

 

 

Apple will be replacing iTunes with standalone Music, TV, and Podcasts apps in the next major version of macOS, expected to be unveiled at WWDC 2019 next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman:

End of iTunes

iTunes has been the way Apple users listen to music, watch movies and TV shows, hear podcasts, and manage their devices for almost two decades. This year, Apple is finally ready to move into a new era. The company is launching a trio of new apps for the Mac – Music, TV, and Podcasts – to replace iTunes. That matches Apple's media app strategy on iPhones and iPads. Without iTunes, customers can manage their Apple gadgets through the Music app.

This information lines up with a recent report from 9to5Mac's Guilherme Rambo, who claimed that iTunes will be renamed to "Music" on the Mac. In other words, iTunes is going away and will be replaced by the new Music app, which is expected to become the new utility for syncing and managing Apple devices.

Steve Jobs quote from Apple's press release about iTunes in 2001:

Apple has done what Apple does best — make complex applications easy, and make them even more powerful in the process. iTunes is miles ahead of every other jukebox application, and we hope its dramatically simpler user interface will bring even more people into the digital music revolution.

Here's what iTunes looked like in 2001:

 

 

 

iTunes has attracted its fair share of criticism over the years for being bloated software, so its split into dedicated Music, TV, and Podcasts apps will be much welcomed. Earlier this week, leaked screenshots provided us with our first glimpse at what the Music and TV apps should look like on macOS 10.15.

Apple is widely expected to announce iOS 13, macOS 10.15, watchOS 6, and tvOS 13 at its WWDC 2019 opening keynote on Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. MacRumors will have live coverage of the event on our website and through MacRumorsLive on Twitter, so be sure to follow along for the latest updates.

 

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[stylemessiah]

Finally, death to one of the worst coded bloated pieces of software ever invented, and im not even talking about the uber bloated Windows version

 

Appalling piece of software....

 

Good riddance

[BimBamSmash]

5 hours ago, steven36 said:

This year, Apple is finally ready to move into a new era. The company is launching a trio of new apps for the Mac – Music, TV, and Podcasts – to replace iTunes.

 

Curious about the reception this is going to get from iTunes users on the Windows ecosystem. It seems to me that the word iTunes is more like a brand, as opposed to some media player to that user-base.

 

Also wondering what becomes of iTunes store in the end. Suppose they do away with the current model and go stream-only. What will become of the content people had purchased before? "Download them all before they disappear", they will say?

[steven36]

39 minutes ago, BimBamSmash said:

Also wondering what becomes of iTunes store in the end. Suppose they do away with the current model and go stream-only. What will become of the content people had purchased before? "Download them all before they disappear", they will say?

I doubt they would do that since the reason they made iTunes  was  to combat against Napster piracy then soon after  we started pirating iTunes by removing the DRM  and posting it online . That piracy fad  has sort of died out over the last few years and  piracy from other Music/video services  are more used now days but you can still find lots of pirated iTunes music and movies floating around but TV shows  are all from Amazon , Netflix  and  TV Networks now. We just have to wait and see , it's not like it matters what they do  about local media  downloads  plenty of other places to buy or pirate it now days .

 

  Wav, Flacs  and BLU-Ray  downloads are the best local media  downloads  you can find because it's not been stepped on so it makes no sense to download all the stepped on versions from iTunes  when you can download better and convert it down yourself to any format you want  if you want to save space.  If they kill selling local downloads  someone else will just get that money so that would not really make sense ether. 

[steven36]

1 hour ago, stylemessiah said:

talking about the uber bloated Windows version

I never was dumb enough to install it on of none  my PCs , When ever they released something from Apple you could a wait day or two and download the drm free version that will play on your favorite Music software / video software .  It took Apple 18  years to split there apps up so it been along time coming . But Windows Media Center  died  with Windows 7 and i never used that ether. Only thing i ever liked about Apple was there weak DRM  was easy to remove to play on anything. 

 

After iTunes  is gone  from windows  that will be the end of apps by Apple on Windows  on Linux  we never had to worry about Apple no way . We have some Microsoft  , Google  apps , etc on Linux if you want to use it but i don't  use them .

[steven36]

More evidence has emerged to suggest that Apple is beginning to move away from its iTunes brand after over 18 years of use.

As noted on Reddit, Apple has abruptly removed all social media content from its iTunes page on Facebook, including posts, photos, and videos. This appears to have happened within the past 24 hours, as a cached version of the iTunes page on Facebook still had content available as of May 31.

 

 

As far as we can tell, it looks like Apple has migrated its iTunes page to its Apple TV page on Facebook, including not only all of the content but nearly 30 million likes and its original April 29, 2009 creation date.

Apple has also removed all photos and videos from its iTunes profile on Instagram, which points users towards the newer Apple TV page on Instagram, but its Twitter counterpart still has content for now.

 

 

The blank pages likely foreshadow bigger moves to come, as Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and 9to5Mac's Guilherme Rambo have both reported that iTunes will be replaced by standalone Music, TV, and Podcasts apps in the next major version of macOS, which Apple is expected to unveil at WWDC 2019 on Monday.

Notably, while the overall iTunes app as we know it is expected to be discontinued, the reports did not suggest that the iTunes storefront for purchasing music, movies, and TV shows is going away any time soon.

iTunes has attracted its fair share of criticism over the years for being bloated software, so its split into three separate apps would be much welcomed. Apple's phasing out of iTunes is likely to be a gradual process, however, so the brand could live on in some capacity for the foreseeable future.

Update: As noted by the Iconfactory's Craig Hockenberry, some itunes.apple.com links for songs and artists now redirect to music.apple.com, serving as yet another example of Apple moving away from its iTunes brand.

I haven’t seen it reported elsewhere, but as of last weekend all https://t.co/tCyWJ9I1D3 links redirect to https://t.co/c1nzdCWhSp — a likely indicator that the brand is done (the app will be fine for those of us who need it.)

— Craig Hockenberry (@chockenberry) June 2, 2019

In fact, as noted by Kyle Seth Gray, it appears that Apple is in the process of dropping iTunes links for apps, podcasts, TV shows, movies, and books as well. Apple will instead use category-specific links such as apps.apple.com, podcasts.apple.com, tv.apple.com, movies.apple.com, and books.apple.com.

e.g. https://t.co/WmxGgr6Sdm

— Kyle Seth Gray 🔜 @ WWDC and Layers (@kylesethgray) June 2, 2019

Some of these links are already live, while others work if the URL is manually changed.
 

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[mp68terr]

1 hour ago, steven36 said:

iTunes has attracted its fair share of criticism over the years for being bloated software, so its split into three separate apps would be much welcomed.

Does it mean that users will have to install 3 applications in order to restore itunes full functionalities?

So far nothing indicates that these 3 separate apps won't be bloated too.

[The AchieVer]

iTunes will stay on Windows despite Apple killing off the macOS version 

 

 

One of the big announcements from Apple made during its WWDC 2019 keynote yesterday is that iTunes will soon go away on Macs. Later this Fall, the next version of macOS called Catalina will introduce new Music, Podcasts and TV apps for macOS users. Apple now thinks that having dedicated apps on the desktop is better than an all-in-one app like iTunes, but for now this change will only affect Mac users.

 

Indeed, iTunes for Windows is here to stay, for now at least. Apple didn’t mention what would happen to the Windows app during yesterday’s keynote, but the company did inform the press later on that iTunes on Windows would continue to function, without specifying if the app would continue to get new features. Here’s what Ars Technica reported yesterday:

Apple says users of iTunes under Microsoft Windows will not see any changes. It won’t be broken up into several apps; it will work just like it does now. However, Apple did not provide any clarification about what support will be like for future features. The company simply says that Windows users will continue to have the same experience as before and that it is not announcing any plans to end support for iTunes in Windows.

Because Apple has yet to launch web apps for the iTunes Store and Apple Music, iTunes remains a very important piece of software on Windows. Apple mentioned yesterday that there are now 100 million active Mac users worldwide, which is a drop in the water compared to the 1.5 billion Windows PCs out there. Most iTunes users are probably on Windows, where the app also provides access to podcasts, audiobooks, movies and TV shows. The app also launched on the Windows 10 Microsoft Store last year, where it remains one of the top free apps along with Spotify and Netflix.

 

 

 

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