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Questionable Rumor Claims Safari and iTunes to Merge Into Single Application

And by the way, I get the feeling that some people don't understand Microsoft's problem back in the day.

They didn't get in trouble for shipping IE with Windows. They got in trouble for tying them together so that you couldn't remove IE without breaking Windows.

That's a heck of a lot different than just merging two applications.

As I said, Outlook does multiple things and they never got in trouble for that. An iTunes that surfs the web would be the same thing as Outlook: Multiple parts to a single application.
 
My wish:
  • Apple strips down iTunes for managing and playing media files, and nothing else
  • iTunes Store becomes web-based, allowing you to use Safari, Chrome, or Firefox
  • Mac OS X will have a hook that links to web-based iTunes Store, downloading contents as needed
  • Revised iSync for syncing with iOS devices, either via USB, Bluetooth, or WiFi (or for real kick, over the cloud)
  • Web-based iBookstore for Mac OSX and iBook client for Mac OS X and Windows
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-gb; GT-P1000 Build/FROYO) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

That would not encourage me to use Safari at all. I sreiously doubt its true tho.
 
Ugh!

I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks this is a really lame idea.

How about an iTunes lite without several of the "features" that have been added. That would be a good idea. About all I use iTunes for is to keep my iPhone and iPod up to date and to occasionally buy an app or some music.
 
This is obvious ********.

There is no reason to want the two together, and many reasons to want them separate.

In addition, their reasoning sucks.

What good does market share do Safari? It's a free program already available on both Mac OS X and Windows OS. Having a high market share doesn't cause Apple to make any more money at all.

The one thing a high market share does is it means more websites are Safari friendly. Why's that great? It likely means they're also Mobile Safari friendly, making the value of the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch greater. Except those devices are already huge successes so web designers are already trying to make their websites Mobile Safari friendly and so Safari friendly.

So that whole market share being the motivation bit is crap.

Rumor debunked. Next!
 
Small White Car said:
The more I think about this the more I'm convinced there IS an idea within Apple that's both real and somehow involving all these pieces.

But someone saw it and completely misunderstood it and came out and told people about it.

Watch, 8 months from now we'll all be saying "Oh, THAT's what they were talking about...wow, whoever stole that news sure was a dope."
Click to expand...

I'm thinking something like Apple has iTunes Store on the web (which you can view in Safari). Apple decides to come up with a way to stream your music collection via the web interface. iTunes is now in your web browser (such as Safari).

*crazy rumor filter*

OMG Apple are making us use iTunes to surf thar web!
 
balamw said:
Please Apple, give us separate snappy apps:

  • iTunes
  • iBooks
  • iVideo (since iMovie and AppleTV is taken)
  • iOS App Store
  • Mac App Store
  • iOS Sync Tool

All of them can use Webkit, but keep them separate. Do one thing and do it well. The Mac App Store proves you remember how to do that.

B
Click to expand...
I agree that iBooks and "ivideo" (Overall Apple needs to remember that they have Quicktime, iTunes shouldn't bother with video. App stores should be separate too, but with them being separate, I don't see much purpose for having an iOS app store on my computer. I don't think there should be a separate app to sync my iOS devices with though. That should be within iTunes.
 
Crazy rumor!

Apple are not an easy company to second guess, but if there's one thing we can say with reasonable certainty it's that they're moving everything towards the 'app' paradigm (just look at iOS, and the forthcoming OS X Lion)

I think, in time, it's more likely that we'll see the iTunes application broken up into individual apps for each function (iPod, Movies, Store, etc) a la iOS. From what we've seen of Lion so far, this strategy would fit well, and make the whole experience a bit more consistent across the Mac/PC and iPod/iPad/iPhone platforms.

Either way, something needs to be done to refine iTunes, because as others have already said, it's messy bloatware at present, and merging the bloat with Safari makes no sense.

Apple are a premium brand, both in terms of software and hardware, and having a 'jack of all trades' app of this nature would be the equivalent of a high-end hi-fi separates manufacturer suddenly churning out one of those awful all-in-one 'music centre/hi-fi' boxes.

It ain't gonna happen!
 
Im glad Mac owners are also saying itunes is bloated and slow. Its the slowest thing on my PC by miles and is the only thing that crashes. I though it was just me! I wouldn't use it if i didn't own an iPhone. I only use Apps and music. I dont see why we cant have seperate software for apps, books, videos, store.........
 
balamw said:
Please Apple, give us separate snappy apps:

  • iTunes
  • iBooks
  • iVideo (since iMovie and AppleTV is taken)
  • iOS App Store
  • Mac App Store
  • iOS Sync Tool

All of them can use Webkit, but keep them separate. Do one thing and do it well. The Mac App Store proves you remember how to do that.

B
Click to expand...

I would slightly modify a couple of items on that list.

iVideo could just go under QuickTime (since the new QuickTime is more consumer-oriented anyway).

iSync deserves some love. Enhance it to support Apple's mobile devices and there's no need for any separate tools.

To the rumor, this pretty much illustrates my opinion on it:
facepalm_picard2.jpg
 
NAG said:
I'm thinking something like Apple has iTunes Store on the web (which you can view in Safari). Apple decides to come up with a way to stream your music collection via the web interface. iTunes is now in your web browser (such as Safari).

*crazy rumor filter*

OMG Apple are making us use iTunes to surf thar web!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I predict a web-based iTunes that you can sign into from anywhere. You still use the iTunes app at home, but this is an option on other machines so that you can sync your phone on someone else's computer using Safari instead of having to wait to get home. (Like, maybe you could sync photos form their machine to your phone? Things that don't have copywrite issues?)

In that way 'iTunes' becomes more like G-Mail. You access it on the web remotely but you still use an application at home.

A far cry from what was reported but I can see how a story like that would get turned into this story if someone didn't get all the details.
 
Astro7x said:
I am completely amazed at how much faster the Mac App Store works compared to the iTunes Store. I think it just sort or proves how much bloat is in iTunes.
Click to expand...

It speaks more to the load on the iTunes store and their web design for iTunes more than bloat.

The thing is: WebKit is used to render both the App Store and the iTunes Store. Any bloat coming in is from the web design side of things, and load on the servers, not from any unique bloat in iTunes versus App Store when they use the same exact HTML renderer.
 
Doesn't sound accurate at all.

1. Why would they want to move the iTunes store anywhere? Trying to lose sales?

2. Why would they care about browser market share? They've never cared about that, and still don't. People are idiots when it comes to browsers, they make terrible choices for the wrong reasons. Let people use what they want, and let Mac users who know what they're doing enjoy Safari.

3. Despite Macrumors whiners, iTunes is fine the way it is. If you want your crap completely disorganized, buy a windows machine and use that awful, awful file system. For me, I'll continue being organized with all visual and audible media accessible and syncable through iTunes. The way it should be.

4. Best case scenario is that they expand the iTunes and App and iBooks stores into one portal accessible through Safari, that completes purchases and downloads the files, without having to go into iTunes.

This can exist on it's own, without removing anything from iTunes. I see potential for discovery/impulse downloads without having to leave Safari.

Anyone who thinks this has ANYTHING to do with web browser market share it's sipping something too strong for them.
 
balamw said:
Please Apple, give us separate snappy apps:

  • iTunes
  • iBooks
  • iVideo (since iMovie and AppleTV is taken)
  • iOS App Store
  • Mac App Store
  • iOS Sync Tool

All of them can use Webkit, but keep them separate. Do one thing and do it well. The Mac App Store proves you remember how to do that.

B
Click to expand...



I want iSync. Please let that happen. No more having to go into iTunes
 
ivladster said:
Although it's not a great solution to boost Safari's market share, I think it kind of makes sense if Apple gonna turn on that data center it built. Making iTunes accessible anywhere you are with all your music etc, etc, etc, does sound like an Apple next big thing.
Click to expand...

I agree. I share the concern re software bloat (launching iTunes is like launching a battleship, partly because I have 80,000 songs, but still...). But I think Apple would be keenly aware of this, in the same way it's aware you don't put a desktop OS on a touchscreen and call it a tablet. I think there may be some advantage in a browser that is also a sophisticated database program. I don't know what that would be, or how Apple would avoid the bloat problem, but if anyone could make it shine, it's them.
 
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