Ding dong, the witch is dead: iTunes is being replaced... sort of
posted Saturday Jun 1, 2019 by Scott Ertz
Though theoretically a successful platform, iTunes has always been a hated part of the Apple ecosystem. It was introduced in 2001 as the legal alternative to Napster - a way to purchase and listen to digital music. It was the companion product to the first iPod devices, which were limited in capabilities and availability. As the platform grew, so did the capabilities of iTunes. Over time, they introduced podcasts to the platform, then videos. With the release of the iPhone, the company decided to incorporate all of the phone's capabilities into the same application. This has made it a very large, bloated piece of software that requires constant updates to support unrelated products and services.
Over the past few years, Apple has begun to spin out the capabilities of iTunes into individual mobile applications, like Apple Podcasts, Apple Music, and Apple TV. Unfortunately, on the computer, iTunes has continued to exist as an unwanted and necessary application. All of that is about to change, however, as Apple is expected to announce at WWDC that they have done the same to the computer that they have to mobile. There will be individual applications for Music, Podcasts, and Video, making each application theoretically easier to navigate.
When the context is lost in an application like iTunes, it makes it nearly impossible to find your way around. For example, the process of syncing music, photos, and ringtones to an iPhone are all different, despite being part of the same application. By giving each task its own dedicated context, it should make using those platforms easier. Plus, it means that adding support for a new model of iPhone, for example, should no longer require an application update, unlike today.
Some possible screenshots have leaked, suggesting that the applications will retain the ugly and outdated user interface that iTunes currently uses, though that might have been for a prototype version, a temporary launch version, or even a complete fake. We don't have long to wait, as WWDC 2019 starts Monday morning.
