Apple Music iTunes or Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Devices on new PC?

[GrandCiel]

I may be late to the game and apologize since I'm sure my question has been kicked around before. I’ve built a new Windows 11 Pro PC and need to decide whether to install iTunes or Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Devices. I still have iTunes on my old Windows 10 PC and can walk down to the basement office and continue using it but at a minimum want the music on my new PC and it would be convenient to mange both music and my iPhone on it.

I do not want to use iCloud. I don’t want to purchase or stream Apple Music. I have a couple Apple TV 4K boxes for home theater but don’t need an app on my PC.

All I want to do is manage my music and back up my iPhone on my PC, not the cloud. When I buy a new CD I have always burned and saved it as an ALAC file in iTunes and managed my playlists in iTunes. I also use a third party program to convert ALAC files to FLAC files that I put on USBs’ and can play on AVR’s and in our cars. I haven't checked if it also works with Apple Music. If not I will have to find a new third party program unless Apple Music has that capability.

Edit: Easy decision once I learned Apple Music is not free and requires a subscription. iTunes it is.

Thank you.

 

[smorrissey]

Well Apple devices for Windows is a real menace for sure, tried to update to ios 18.3 downloading all the ipsw via the app, and it bricked my phone again after all these months.

I don't understand one thing if Apple doesn't want us to use windows anymore why release faulty apps?

I had to download itunes in order to unbrick the phone and install ios 18.3.

 

[Beitie]

I wish I had seen this earlier. I'm in a very similar situation to you OP. I've been using iTunes for Windows since 2004. I've owned many iPods, and now I use iPhone as well. I've amassed a huge music library in that amount of time, and have transferred it over to every new PC I've built since. I have playlists that mean something to me, play counts that mean something to me, ratings, lyrics, cover art... all of it.

I also remember the mid 2010's when iTunes became so bloated and could barely function on a Windows PC, and Mac as well. Everything was laggy, and took forever to work properly. However, I feel that modern day hardware with NVMe drives, powerful CPU's, and lots of RAM has solved this.

Two days ago, I saw that I could install Apple Music App, Apple Devices App, and such on my Windows PC. I thought this could be an improvement. It's not. Once I installed Apple Devices, and Apple music, it went in and formatted things from my old iTunes. At first I thought that was cool, it would all move over and sync the same as it had when I used iTunes, and I would get the modern features of the updated and more supported applications. NOT!

Once I made the switch, my phone lost all of the music and playlists I have had synced for ages. It even messed with the phone itself, and the maps app forgot where my home address was. I couldn't believe how terrible of an experience it was.

In Apple Music, album artwork was lost. Genre's were updated and used improper capitalization, and just basic poor formatting. iTunes was no longer really laggy for me, but when switched to Apple Music, all that lag came right back with it.

I just spent a few hours of my weekend reverting back to the days before I installed these terrible applications.

If you are still debating between iTunes and the new hotness that is Apple Music, Apple Devices, and Apple TV for Windows, the choice is super easy. iTunes. It's the OG, and it has more features, less laggy, better support for you as a user.