WWDC confirmed what we had suspected for a while – iTunes is no more. The software has been around for 18 years and expanded far beyond the music management tool it was supposed to be.
Not iTunes, but Apple Music And Other Apps
iTunes will instead be replaced by three different apps in macOS Catalina – Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and Apple TV. The new Music app will give Mac user access to over 50 million songs, playlists and music videos on their computers, and the ability to purchase music. Your existing library is not going anywhere either. Apple said that users will have access to all the music they have previously downloaded, purchased or ripped from a CD.
Apple TV
TV show and movies are no longer going to be part of iTunes either. The Apple TV app will contain Apple TV channels, personalized recommendations, and over 100,000 movies and TV shows previously available to buy or rent in iTunes. All Macs from 2018 onwards support watching movies in 4K HDR with Dolby Atmos-supported sound. There is also a Watch Now screen with an Up Next section. Through that, viewers can resume watching their movie or program on their different devices. Apple TV+ will also be available through the app from the fall.
Podcasts
Podcasts are now going to be separate from iTunes too. The Podcasts app boasts a catalog of 700,000 different shows. There will be new collections curated by global editors. Search tools will enable users to find episodes by host, guest or discussion topic.
These three new apps will still recognize devices connected to a Mac via a cable, as iTunes did. iTunes will though remain on Windows (via Ars Technica).
This is all so insanely silly. The only thing that has ended is the iTunes brand name.
Music, podcast, video, and device syncing functions were already highly compartmentalized in the latest versions of iTunes. All that Apple has done is to break these compartments into separate runtimes and rebrand the separate apps. Such a nothing Burger..
The tech media gets so worked up over meaningless BS. You’d think they were manufacturing controversy for clicks or something…
What about iDevice syncing for those of us who don’t trust the clown… err… cloud?
IDevice syncing and backup functionality is identical to what it has been, you simply access it within Finder now instead of iTunes. Actually, this is a very logical change.
Where’s homesharing in the new world? Homesharing broke completely for me with the latest Apple TV app.
My second & third generation AppleTVs can no longer access my library. The device says homesharing is on, it tries to access the correct library, but never opens the library – the spinner runs for days and never returns.
So is homesharing done and gone?
Interesting. I haven’t had it die with gen 3. When it has stalled a reboot usually kicks it back online.
I would like to see 4 apps:
Music
Podcasts
Apple TV
iTunes (for those of us who don’t to subscribe)
Also access to video they may have ripped. Some of us have converted dvd collections to m4v. How will that happen?
Music IS iTunes for music. Whether or not you subscribe to Apple Music, everything works just like it always has. So do ICloud Music Library and ITunes Match..
Will they still have the iTunes Store?
From what I’ve been reading, in particular AppleInsider, yes. They will continue music sales through the store.
I was concerned about this as well.
Of course. The new Music app is just the music functionality of iTunes and the iTunes Store split out into a separate runtime.