It’s really is the end of an era in digital music. According to Bloomberg almost two decades after launching iTunes and forever changing the model of physical album purchases; Apple is finally ready to retire the iconic product. During the software keynote at their annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC); Next Monday Apple is planning on replacing iTunes with standalone music, television and podcast apps.
Although the move has been rumored for years now & was only confirmed back in April. This new and improved move set to unify Apple’s media strategy across their devices. The iPhones and iPads already offer separate music, TV and podcast apps, unlike the centralized iTunes app on Macs and MacBooks. As far as functionality is concerned, users can expect the new Music app to offer some of the same features that iTunes currently does. Things like purchasing songs and syncing phones would remain albeit in a much sleeker interface that’s more in tune with Apple’s current design language. It’s also expected that the new Music service will be closely bundled with their existing streaming service Apple Music.
The death of iTunes will definitely be good news for disgruntled & frustrated users of the service. But iTunes will forever deserve credit for the way it revolutionized the music industry in the early 2000s. Before iTunes, the main source of music consumption was illegal file-sharing on Napster. Enter Steve Jobs’ & iTunes, a new product that would become the digital era’s first sustainable, user-friendly (and very legal) way to listen to music.