RIP iTunes: Apple kills its media service; breaks it into Podcasts, Music and TV apps

It was known for some time that Apple was going to discontinue its 18-year-old relic iTunes and at the  WWDC 2019 Developer conference , the company made it official. Instead of iTunes, Apple has broken down the original service into three separate macOS apps: Podcasts, TV and Music. [caption id=“attachment_4430085” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] iTunes.[/caption] For quite some time, iTunes, which was one of Apple’s most prized and signature product, was a one-stop place for you to sync your iPods, iPads and iPhones to Mac and Windows devices and also purchase music and video content. However, the service has felt quite neglected over the past few years, especially with the mainstreaming of streaming apps. So it was but obvious that Apple would discontinue it. This has already happened on iOS devices, wherein the separate Podcasts app has been present for some time now. macOS will be getting the Podcast app along with TV and Music with the new macOS 10.15 update. As per what Apple demonstrated on stage, the new apps look quite colourful and clean, as compared to the bloat nightmare on iTunes. The names of the apps are self-explanatory. Music is just rebranded Apple Music, TV will have the Apple TV Plus service and Podcasts is for a dedicated Podcast listening experience. Apple has said that it will be introducing a machine learning feature that will be indexing shows so that people can search for content more easily. The TV apps will support 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. Also for those who used to sync their iOS devices using iTunes will no longer see an app pop up to do so. They will be synced through the sidebar in Finder. The other major takeaways from the WWDC 2019 keynote : Apple announces a new redesigned Mac Pro at a starting price of $5,999 Apple’s new Pro Display XDR display has a separate pro stand priced at $999 WWDC 2019: Apple introduces iPadOS for iPads with multi-tasking, new home screen and more WWDC 2019: Apple iOS 13 brings Dark Mode, smarter Siri and performance upgrades Apple’s new ‘Sign in with Apple’ privacy feature to rival Facebook, Google’s web logins Apple introduces web login, stresses privacy in a challenge to Google and Facebook WWDC 2019: Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controller support is coming to Apple TV Apple WWDC 2019 Highlights: iOS 13, MacOS Catalina, iPadOS, Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR announced