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Apple Will Likely Replace iTunes on macOS With Standalone Music, Podcasts, and TV Apps in Next Major Update (9to5mac.com)
Developer and blogger Guilherme Rambo, writing for 9to5Mac: Fellow developer Steve Troughton-Smith recently expressed confidence about some evidence found indicating that Apple is working on new Music, Podcasts, and perhaps Books apps for macOS, to join the new TV app. I've been able to independently confirm that this is true. On top of that, I've been able to confirm with sources familiar with the development of the next major version of macOS -- likely 10.15 -- that the system will include standalone Music, Podcasts, and TV apps, but it will also include a major redesign of the Books app.
The new Books app will have a sidebar similar to the News app on the Mac, it will also feature a narrower title bar with different tabs for the Library, Book Store, and Audiobook Store. On the library tab, the sidebar will list the user's Books, Audiobooks, PDFs and other collections, including custom ones. The new Music, Podcasts, and TV apps will be made using Marzipan, Apple's new technology designed to facilitate the porting of iPad apps to the Mac without too many code changes. Further reading: Steven Troughton-Smith Thinks iTunes Breakup is Nigh (DaringFireball).
The new Books app will have a sidebar similar to the News app on the Mac, it will also feature a narrower title bar with different tabs for the Library, Book Store, and Audiobook Store. On the library tab, the sidebar will list the user's Books, Audiobooks, PDFs and other collections, including custom ones. The new Music, Podcasts, and TV apps will be made using Marzipan, Apple's new technology designed to facilitate the porting of iPad apps to the Mac without too many code changes. Further reading: Steven Troughton-Smith Thinks iTunes Breakup is Nigh (DaringFireball).
Get rid of that lumbering beast that is iTunes. But if a stand alone music app will handle music, will iTunes keep its moniker? Just take the leap and rename it Apple Explorer.
Nope. sorry. They are still going to be trash.
As long as I don't ever need to use iTunes again I'll be happy. When it came out it had about 10% of the capability of the software I was using, 200% of the bloat and 1000% of the advertising.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
iTunes is ... not great. I just hope the replacement will keep the ability to play/download local music, not be chained to the "clown."
Let's hope the replacement will not skip in the middle of the tracks anymore, a major bug Apple is unwilling to address in iTunes for years (and removes apple discussion board forum posts if someone brings it up)!
Attitudes make the difference between Space and Time: we want to MAX our temporal, and MIN our spatial extension.
iTunes is one of the most recognized brands out there. It'll be difficult to maintain that brand identity when you start splitting up features.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
iTunes fucking sucks ass.
Don't underestimate Apples ability to make this three times worse.
After all, no one could have predicted the consumer-raping clusterfuck that is Apple I/O.
Apple is simply dropping the 18 year old code base given it's cheaper to develop a smaller app with a minimum viable product feature set, than to just maintain the old product.
Cost in adapting iTunes to the new subscription model is also likely a big reason.
Expect it to drop support phones and iPods older than 4 years too.
All of which are cost savings, lets it reset from a too many features in a product to a much simpler product.
My guess is older iTunes, purchase a song one at a time, revenue is declining or will start declining soon.
Shortest answer: Business model changed - existing product does not fit business model
Internal answer: Nobody at Apple wants to work on a obsolete product with limited ground for artistic types to redesign, limited ground for managers to deliver resume bullet quality new features, limited ground for development managers to get their team to deliver new features.
Expect Apple, MS, Google and the like to accelerate retirement of older products.
Now, now there. Apple never removes posts in their forum. (Laughs uncontrollably)
L'Idiot
I had this happen with songs on my iPhone, where if I interrupted playback while the file was syncing from the cloud, it would never move past that point in the song.
I never tested to see if the file continued to download after the playback was interrupted. It is possible that the interruption could have generated some corrupt data in the file that other players simply ignore.
That beast deserves a long, painful death.
iTunes is also the application that lets you sync your iPhone and iPad. It's already confusing now that images get sent off to another application.
Agreed. I also hope the Podcast app will let you adjust the speed of playback. The iPhone app has it. The iTunes app you need a $4.95 extension. (?!?!?!?)
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
" next major version of macOS -- likely 10.15"
we used to label things sensibly.... that looks like a patched version number
They really, really do not feel like Mac apps and are very clunky. Try to manipulate a list in the Home app - it is nothing at all like the drag and drop you'd expect, it's clearly built around the idea of a long-press triggering some kind of mode, then reordering, then saying 'Done'. A phone app, in other words.
iTunes may not be everyone's favourite, but at least it's designed for a computer interface. It's also more powerful than the iOS one too, with things like smart playlists not syncing properly over to the iOS app (try a smart playlist that's dependent on another playlist - eg. all tracks from a certain playlist that are also rated above three stars - won't sync).
I hope it doesn't start a dumbing-down of the apps and a transition to a less Mac-like interface. If Apple can't be bothered to use their own native APIs and start cross-porting, why should any other developer show interest?
Apple like to think they're still good at UI. iTunes has long put the lie to this.
I like my VHS/TV/Hi-Fi combo media centers in my living room. Just as I like my video/music/jpeg combo media centers on my laptop. Bests of classes all in one tidy package. WHO the hell does Apple think it is?!
* You may have to relearn everything and get frustrated when things don't work the same as they used to and when options are moved around, but when you finally find what you're looking for, from that point on it just works.
How to do a reset:
1. Take existing feature bloated, costly to maintain software, retire it
2. User base complains for existing users
3. Release new much simpler product - AKA the 'Pepsi Generation'
4. New users don't care nor know about the legacy product
5. Big clump of legacy system users move to new system with much angst
6. Remaining users of legacy system slowly stop using it
7. Legacy system is fully retired, unsupported and uninstalled from your machine or iPad or iPhone after 2 years
8. Apple has less headaches and one less large legacy application to worry about
How do you unpaint yourself from the corner?
You go to another room and start painting all over.
Combine with the 'we don't own it and are not responsible for it' open sourcing existing products with much shorter support lifecycles - where llong term support is now 2.5 years instead of 7 - and much more frequent releases and major vendors can dump most legacy applications off their cost centers in 5 years.
Expect Apple to stop producing OS updates for iphones/ipads 2.5 years after they are first released. Which means, your average purchaser buying 6 months after the hardware device is released will get 2 years of OS updates or less since Apple releases an iOS update every 1.5 years.
For the sequel? We'll be waiting...
I once tried to copy one file from my Macbook to an iPad Air using iTunes.
I haven't found yet.
All we ever hear from Apple nowadays are announcements about services.
But what Apple's customers (and potential customers) are clamoring about is hardware. For laptops, that's:
- keyboards that work
- large 17+ screens
- headphone jacks
- protective charging cables e.g. Magsafe
- replaceable batteries, RAM, and hard drives
- a smorgasbord of ports for every need
- internal disk drives (not external "super" drives)
and on and on. I can't be the only one sick of hearing about services while the hardware wilts.
It's like crowing about the shiny new roof you put on your house while the foundation of the house is washing away.
iTunes has needed a haircut for ages, but I have a strong suspicion Apple will find a way to make the sum-total of these new apps somehow *worse* overall.
Hopefully they don't completely kibosh the original iTunes for a release (or five)... Given that it still is what provides legacy support for older iDevices. My iPod Classic 160G isn't going anywhere any time soon, and I'm sure a new Apple Music desktop app will have basically no support for it because it will be written by Silicon Valley 22 y/o techies who don't remember life before 4G LTE.
Exit question: What happens with the Windows version? Although I have Macs now, I went through a very long period with just Windows and Android, so I've kept my PC as my "primary" system for managing all music and taking care of synchronizing and whatnot, even as iDevices have come and gone. Hopefully nothing changes any time soon there.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Now that Jobs is dead they can finally flush that turd. (What took so long?)
I just feel so sad for the the people close to where that turd is going to wash up.
Very few applications evoke in me such a visceral hatred. I've used both Windows and Mac versions (and due to many circumstances, have usually used Windows). Although Mac iTunes is a slightly better experience, I will do almost anything to avoid using the mess that is iTunes on any platform.
Will iTunes stay like this in Windows? :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Exactly. Does anyone think apple will actually replace this piece of shit with anything that isnt equally or greater in shittiness. apple is a terrible software company.
"We at apple are sorry about this major bug that has effected a small amount of users."