macOS 10.15 Expected to Feature Standalone Music and Podcasts Apps and Redesigned Books App

[jagolden]

Nothing bloated about iTunes. It’s quite simple, one-stop for buying/loading/ripping music and audio files. The term “bloated” seems to be thrown around a lot without any understanding or support to back it up.
It’s certainly not confusing to use, and unless your computer is under powered, it’s certainly not slow.

Unlike so many it seems, I’m quite capable on manually managing my files, don’t need someone else to do it for me.
Don’t need auto-sync or sync over wi-fi.
Having tens of thousands of music and audio files both in and out of iTunes, managing the files I want at any given time using iTunes is ideal.
I don’t even keep thousands of files in iTunes, simply dragging them onto my phone or iPods when desired. Why would I want to give this up?

 

[kostthem]

As long as I can still edit (name, album name, writer, artwork etc.) songs from Apple Music and from my personal collection and to manage smart playlists, I 'll be ok.

 

[umbilical]

I miss the old iTunes with no damn streaming, no purchases, anything... just to play my rip CDs files.

I hate sync my iphone with iTunes, I use this: https://imazing.com/

I hope apple split itunes, like many says here is totally bloated!

I don't remember the last day that I use iTunes, apple kills my fav app on the mac some years ago...

 

[citysnaps]

People always say this but never articulate it.

You have sections for music, movies, tv shows, podcasts, and books. Each of those has your library and a store from which you can add to your library. Is that really convoluted and unintuitive?

You make excellent points.

There are many people here who feel compelled to regularly proclaim iTunes a "mess." I suppose that's just a quick retort, as hackneyed as it is, for those that come here day after day to rag on Apple and Cook to quickly accumulate forum cred.

And...there may be a few people here who are not the least bit technically savvy and are even stymied dealing with the Finder.

Personally, I've had no issues with iTunes and believe its one of Apple's best apps and has served me well for almost a decade.

 

[cflem]

So you’ll buy stuff in the iTunes app and it’ll transfer over to Music? Like I wonder how that’ll work.


I’m assuming we’ll still sync through iTunes for photos.

The music app will function exactly like the iPad one... Marzipan. (Thats a good thing)

 

[Bin Cook]

As long as it is fully functional. The current Marzipan apps seemed quite lazy and just simple ports of the iOS counterpart with no added desktop features.

Numbers is still not back to where it was an all active development to get it closer to Excel seems to have ceased completely. So don't hold your breath.

 

[ElectricPotato]

So what about Itunes on Windows, I assume it just stays the same?

Yes, it will continue sucking.

 

[lunarworks]

I miss the old iTunes with no damn streaming, no purchases, anything... just to play my rip CDs files.

I hate sync my iphone with iTunes, I use this: https://imazing.com/

I hope apple split itunes, like many says here is totally bloated!

I don't remember the last day that I use iTunes, apple kills my fav app on the mac some years ago...

There's other jukebox software options if all you want is your music ripped from CDs.

 

[macduke]

Like the Apple News, Home, Stocks, and Voice Memos apps on macOS Mojave, Rambo says the new Music, Podcasts, and TV apps will be built with Apple's so-called Marzipan developer tools, which allow for a single app to be designed to run across iPhone, iPad, and Mac with a similar codebase.

Oh great, because these are such shining examples of quality desktop UI design, Apple has decided to make more of them. Can't wait. /s

 

[Icaras]

So you’ll buy stuff in the iTunes app and it’ll transfer over to Music? Like I wonder how that’ll work.


I’m assuming we’ll still sync through iTunes for photos.

The perfect version of macOS for me would be for Apple to ditch iTunes altogether and migrate stores into their own separate, respective apps, but for the time being anyway, it should work just like how it does in iOS currently: purchases made through iTunes link to your music library in the music app or your movies/TV shows library in the TV app.

 

[TheShadowKnows!]

Didn't they update the filesystem in the latest release? But yeah i know what you mean, the good old days were.....good!

Not to forget continuity -- an awesome development.
Something (as far as I know), unavailable under WIN10.

The commingling of iMessage, and FaceTime, among iOS and macOS, is one of the reasons that keeps me away from WIN10. (Which I run under Parallels as a VM for professional reasons).

But, to be fair, my work-supplied Dell XPS 9560 (running WIN10, refreshed after a major, and much needed, BIOS upgrade) fares well when compared to my MBP. (Even the XPS trackpad which was unusable, out off the box, became pretty good after the BIOS upgrade, but one year later.)​

[My view: It is the criminal mis-management of new MBP hardware by Apple Execs (butterfly keyboard, jumbo-sized trackpad, T2 firmware) that forces me to keep my current MBP and not upgrade to a recent offering, albeit the high prices.]

 

[crcuilla]

I remember the days when Mac OS updates were interesting. We talked about things like multitasking, 64-bit, Quartz Extreme, Fast User Switching, Expose, other GUI changes etc.
Now the big features are mainly service related...

And emojis. Don't forget the emojis. ;-)

 

[dantracht]

This can't come soon enough. iTunes needs an intervention.

 

[justperry]

MR, why have an article on this again, it has the same content as a few days ago. (Friday April 5)

Apple May Be Planning to Break Up iTunes With New Music and Podcast Apps for Mac

This will be a welcome and long overdue change, but it shouldn't be the basis for a new version of OS X. At this point I'd be happy with a release of Snow Mojave (i.e. just fix the huge mountain of bugs that have accumulated so far)

Mojave is the "new" snow Leopard, it's by far the most stable releases of OS X/macOS.

 

[alexandero]

I'm not ready to give up my local music library, and I hope Apple doesn't try to force me away from it.

 

[Icaras]

Love this news. Very much looking forward to 10.15

 

[jonnyb098]

Why do you assume this is for older devices?

I don’t want my only backup to be in the cloud. I want control of my iPhone backups and don’t want to wait an eternity to upload/download my entire iPhone image from the cloud if I need to restore it.

Wireless and cloud is overrated.

Got news for you, Apple doesn’t care about pissing off a few people when hundreds of millions of others will be perfectly happy.

On a separate note, a complete restore via iTunes or the cloud would take a couple hours regardless. The difference is one of those options is infinitely more convenient.

And lastly in my original comments I said apple will still provide a way for people to sync their devices manually. So I’m confused on why you are even commenting on it unless you are indeed one of the “luddites” I spoke of who wants to blow some hot air for no reason?

 

[justperry]

Make an app called Sync and take it out of iTunes. Leave iTunes for my stand alone music library and take everything else out of it.

As it used to be, iTunes was an awesome app, way better than other music players.

 

[Feyl]

Nothing bloated about iTunes. It’s quite simple, one-stop for buying/loading/ripping music and audio files. The term “bloated” seems to be thrown around a lot without any understanding or support to back it up.
It’s certainly not confusing to use, and unless your computer is under powered, it’s certainly not slow.

Unlike so many it seems, I’m quite capable on manually managing my files, don’t need someone else to do it for me.
Don’t need auto-sync or sync over wi-fi.
Having tens of thousands of music and audio files both in and out of iTunes, managing the files I want at any given time using iTunes is ideal.
I don’t even keep thousands of files in iTunes, simply dragging them onto my phone or iPods when desired. Why would I want to give this up?

I agree. I'm an Apple user since 2010 and I've had exactly zero issues with iTunes. It's true though, that it occasionally freezes and it's way slower on Windows than the Mac version. Splitting iTunes into more apps will only add another apps that I won't use and in typical post 2012 Apple fashion, the "new" apps will add nothing new or interesting to the mix and I highly doubt it will be faster. iTunes will stay mainly the same, Apple Music app will be even uglier as it's iOS version and the Books app.. well is anybody reading books on a computer?

 

[xgman]

Like new file system, 32 bit deprecation, .

That is a bigger deal than most people realize. There are so many bits and pieces of 32 bit code or parts of otherwise 64 bit apps (like updaters, installers, etc) not to mention older apps that will likely never get a 64 bit update, So buyer beware on at least upgrade installs . . .

 

[cmaier]

I agree. I'm an Apple user since 2010 and I've had exactly zero issues with iTunes. It's true though, that it occasionally freezes and it's way slower on Windows than the Mac version. Splitting iTunes into more apps will only add another apps that I won't use and in typical post 2012 Apple fashion, the "new" apps will add nothing new or interesting to the mix and I highly doubt it will be faster. iTunes will stay mainly the same, Apple Music app will be even uglier as it's iOS version and the Books app.. well is anybody reading books on a computer?

podcasts in the books app, sounds like. and i do use books app for pdfs i need to keep track of, so I assume some people use it.

 

[KazKam]

Honestly, this scares me a little. Not that I think iTunes is perfect... far from it. However, as the saying goes, "the enemy you know is better than the one you don't."

iTunes is comfortable and familiar, if not bloated and quirky.

If the new apps for Mac OS go the way of their iOS versions, I am extremely worried about being able to effectively manage my massive media library. For my use case/IMO: They screwed up the Music app on iOS with their Apple Music service, they screwed up the Videos app with their ridiculous TV app, and so on.

Maybe I should read the writing on the wall and just move to Plex already?

 

[Icaras]

I'm sure they are keeping iTunes for people who manager their own music.

I would expect the Music App to be for Apple Music subscriptions only.

That could equate to an overhaul of the Music app for iOS, as that houses both your personal music library as well as Apple Music. Rather, I’m more inclined to believe iTunes, in its next iteration, could transform into nothing more than just a store portal, like in iOS.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Happy with all these apps coming to the mac. iTunes is convoluted for the times when I want to be on my Mac and just play music. I don’t know if my Mac will get the next version of Mac OS though.

 

[jonblatho]

People always say this but never articulate it.

You have sections for music, movies, tv shows, podcasts, and books. Each of those has your library and a store from which you can add to your library. Is that really convoluted and unintuitive?

Say you've never heard of iTunes's non-music functionality in your life (as I can assure you that many people haven't) and want to know how to get a movie or TV show on your Mac. Is "iTunes" the app you're going to open as a first guess?
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There are many people here who feel compelled to regularly proclaim iTunes a "mess." I suppose that's just a quick retort, as hackneyed as it is, for those that come here day after day to rag on Apple and Cook to quickly accumulate forum cred.

I'm not one of those people (seriously, go through my post history if you need to) and I still believe iTunes to be a mess.