Report: Apple Could Kill iTunes This Year

A new look at existing speculation by Bloomberg has now only corroborated reports about three new macOS apps but also added a fatal blow to Apple’s iconic iTunes software.

According to the report, Apple is planning to kill iTunes and remove it entirely from macOS during the course of 2019.

The growing build-up to next week’s Worldwide Developer Conference has unearthed speculation that the company will announce three new Mac apps for Music, TV, and Podcasts. The existence of those apps would mean that there would be less heavy-lifting for iTunes to do due to the fact that a lot of the major functionality would have been removed and inserted into a standalone experience. The initial suggestion was that iTunes would still need to exist to handle syncing and backup functionality but it seems as though that will not be the case.

At least not on macOS. The angle here is that the brand new Music app – which will be the home of Apple Music on Mac – will also do a lot of under-the-hood lifting, including handling synchronization, which would make iTunes obsolete for Mac users.

It would, however, give those same Mac users a collection of new apps to sink their teeth into, which would come with a collection of new experiences and an uncluttered way to access their favorite content without having to fight against the bloat of a package like iTunes. Most users don’t use anywhere close to all of the features within iTunes.

If Apple was to make this move and announce the decision at WWDC next week, it seems very unlikely that the company would go all-in and do the same for Windows. Apple is able to create Music, TV, and Podcast apps which can be bundled as part of the macOS experience but doesn’t have the same level of control and distribution on Windows or other platforms.

So, for that reason, iTunes is likely to remain a Windows experience and will continue to be offered, updated, and supported for those who live outside of the macOS ecosystem. At least for the time being.

As always, if anything else progresses on this, we will be sure to let you know immediately.

(Source: Bloomberg)

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