MOST READ 2: iTunes as we knew it is dead. Good.
At its World Wide Developers Conference today (June 3), Apple killed iTunes. Sort of.
Since its introduction in 2001, iTunes has been asked to do more and more and more, resulting in a clunky, often slow package that leaves most users annoyed. It was time for iTunes to go.
But with the next version of Mac OS–called Catalina–iTunes has been broken up in to three separate apps.
First, is the Music app which handles just music. The user interface looks familiar, so it shouldn’t take long to get the hang of it. And yes, the iTunes Music Store stays, so if you’re like me and you still purchase digital tracks, you can stand down from DefCon 1.
Podcasts get their own app, complete with a new search function that will allow you to search by keywords, not in the metadata in the podcast file, but apparently within the audio itself. Machine learning will scan the spoken word and log that for search. Cool. Good for discovering new podcasts.
The final part is Apple TV, which looks like what users have been getting on their TV for the last couple of years.
And one more thing. When users sync their devices, no app pops up on the screen to gobble up real estate or to distract you from what else you want to do. Syncing is done completely in the background through Finder. Nice.
HOWEVER, if you use iTunes on a Windows machine, you will (at least for now) still use the old ways. You will not get the three separate apps.
In related news, Apple’s CarPlay infotainment system is going to get a big change to its interface. Music and maps will be shown on the same page and when you ask Siri for something, she doesn’t take over the whole screen.
