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Apple Aiming to End iTunes Music Downloads in Two Years [Update: Apple Says 'Not True']

Makes sense, Apple don’t like to waste resources on projects that no longer excite them. (I’m still smarting from the termination of Aperture -- what a royal pain in my a$$ that was). On the bright side, there will always be services willing to stream your own music to you. I have mine in the Amazon Cloud as well as iTunes Match. I had it in Google too, but that seemed excessive. Apple music, like Apple Photos was a disaster for me with my large collections. I am over relying on Apple for any kind of services now. I'll buy my music from Amazon, or if all artists move to streaming, then I guess I'll stream. iTunes has been so bad for so long, I'll be glad to see the back of it.
 
My whole music library is based in iTunes and formatted for iTunes. I'd imagine they won't have much interest in supporting local libraries forever, and iTunes Match may very well go as well.

I'm really not liking the new Apple much. The Hub Of My Digital Life has turned into lo-fi dreck. Jobs would not be pleased with Apple's lack of focus on quality sound.
 
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For me it's easy to justify streaming services. If I buy just 1 single album in a month that is the cost of basically getting unlimited listening for the month. 1 album vs. unlimited... hmmm I'll choose unlimited. I know there's lots of holes in that argument. But if you're buying minimum 1-2 albums a month, go streaming, such a better value.
 
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**** this. I like owning my music and listening offline. I don't have an infinite data plan. Also, what about people with iPods (beside touches) - they are going to obsolete those devices? What about playing music downloaded to Apple Watch without your phone around? Is it really that hard to maintain TWO options - downloading and streaming?
 
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Why? They still need the App Store so all the infrastructure remains. Run as lose leader.

Anyway I still download music far more than stream. Guess Amazon gets my money in the future. Until then - thanks for all the downloads iTunes.
 
pacmania1982 said:
Well thats a stupid idea. I don't want to have to stream my music all the time (even if it is downloaded to my phone). I want to buy a song when and where I want. Guess I'll either go back to buying CD's or *gasp* torrenting...

Apple got the world to change their minds about paying for music and now this? Its like a complete 180.
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You could also buy from Amazon or Google or any other service where you can buy music.

And yes it is a 180, which means they simply went straight. They used to want you to pay for your music. They still want you to pay for your music.

Streaming isn't free. It just shifts how you pay. You used to pay to own individual songs for the rest of your life. Now you pay to own every song for one month.

Historically, people die eventually. So they weren't paying to own the song for forever. They were paying to own it for ~70 years (less if they're older.) Until/unless people become immortal, there's no reason to be particularly attached to paying for individual tracks instead of individual months.

Own every song ever for 70 years by paying $10/month for 70 years = $8400. Or pay for individual tracks. If you want to listen to more than 8400 songs, you're better off streaming.

If we become immortal... well, we can worry about that when it happens. We'll have a lot more time on our hands to worry about smaller problems like this then.
 
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Mascots said:
At that point, iPod will officially be dead.
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Well iPod nano and the final death of the clickwheel iPod. They'd still be able to sell the iPod touch you can still stream via that. At least if you're on a wifi connection.
 
I honestly don't care. I rarely buy any music as I stream everything. My taste in music changes from one genre to another and I like being able to switch without investing. I also get to explore and learn about new music artists from playlists and radio stations.

I'm not taking my music with me when I'm gone and I'm sure nobody will want it so what's the point? As long as I can have an offline feature, I am solid!
 
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So that means they will kill the iPod too, since that requires downloaded music? I still use my iPod in my car and when I exercise. Looks like the search for music manager is on.
 
That's it. Apple can go get freezedried if they execute this. People like owning music, some like streaming/leasing it. I'm leaving the ecosystem if this even gets a hint of going ahead. Thanks for the notice, MR.
 
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Nope. I don't use streaming music services. I buy the music I like then I listen to the songs in an order of my choosing. Heck, I don't even use shuffle.
 
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IzzyJG99 said:
I mean...I'd be cool with buying the music and it being in the cloud only on my Mac. But when I am traveling and I don't want to use up my data plan or can't access wi-fi...I'd want physical files of the songs on my iDevice.
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How are you getting "physical" files of songs on your iDevice?
 
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Guess this means I'm gonna have to download my music from Google now. Apple is pushing me to Android and Windows arena.
 
xmichaelp said:
Honestly, this is fine with me. It might be hard to imagine but streaming will take over even more than it does today. It won't be as shocking in 2-4 years.

All itunes music is DRM free and can be reuploaded to Apple servers anyways.
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For now. Whose to say future iOS and OS X version will support anything other than streaming? This rumour is that stupid - if Apple are considering this, then god only knows what other nonsense they'll pull. I hope this is just a bad rumour, but if it's not, Apple won't get another dime from me for music.
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Mac21ND said:
I guess I could always buy that thing called a "CD"...
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The point of iTunes is to buy the songs you want, which typically for me amounts to about 25% of the average CD.
 

This still holds true. Look at the subscription data. Perhaps it's more profitable and that's what they're chasing. But honestly, I don't know what the **** the iTunes team is doing. I think Apple sacrificed talent for growth and it's showing cracks everywhere. They're riding the coattails on too many well made categories.
 
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v0lume4 said:
I'm all aboard the streaming train (I use Spotify), but I think this is a terrible decision. Countless folks (many of you here on MacRumors!) prefer to purchase and OWN their music. When Apple ends music downloads, you know what's going to happen? People are just going to start buying their music elsewhere like Amazon, etc. If Apple seriously thinks that all current users that purchase music from iTunes will just go, "Oh, that's too bad. I'll go ahead and subscribe to Apple Music now," then they are in for a huge reality check.
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Apple really is getting arrogant. I'm sure they think this will increase apple music subscriptions but if anything it might actually decrease them since I'm assuming under this you wouldn't be able to download songs from apple music for offline listening.
 
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