Apple’s iTunes may finally be on its way out. 9to5Mac is reporting that with the next major update to the company’s macOS operating system (specifically macOS 10.15), Apple will introduce new Music, TV, and Podcasts apps that will all be separate and create a much simpler user experience. Right now, all three of these services are offered through iTunes. Steve Troughton-Smith corroborates this report.
According to 9to5Mac, the new apps will be built on Apple’s Marzipan platform which allows for the porting of iPad apps to macOS, making it much easier for developers to create an app for a bunch of Apple devices at once. It’s the same platform Apple used to make the News app on Mac. Because of this, the apps will share similar interfaces to what you’d find on the iPad. So if you use the Music, TV, or Podcasts app on your iPad, that’s essentially what you can expect on your Mac come later this year.
The Books app will also reportedly receive a refreshed UI that will take cues from the iPad app.
Unfortunately, despite offering the services separately, Apple likely won’t kill iTunes completely with macOS 10.15. It’s all due to the fact that the company doesn’t currently have an alternative solution for manually syncing old iPods, iPhones, and iPads. I imagine such a service will arrive at some point, but for now, iTunes will live another day at the very least for this purpose alone.
The death of iTunes has been a long time coming. The software debuted all the way back in 2001, and since then, it’s received plenty of notable upgrades. However, it’s never received an update that fundamentally fixed the many flaws that still lurk within the software today. And since there are still so many issues pegging iTunes like general performance problems and security concerns, it makes sense to finally retire it.
Of course, this report hasn’t been confirmed by Apple nor have we been able to corroborate it ourselves. However, with WWDC 2019 fast approaching, we expect to hear much more about Apple’s software plans in the near future.
