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Caffeine Freak

Apple to shut down iTunes, replace w/separate new apps

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Nearly two decades after its launch revolutionized the music industry, iTunes will be no more. Bloomberg reports that Apple will announce the end of iTunes at its developer conference next Monday, replacing the all-encompassing media store with separate apps for music, TV, and podcasts on its computers.

This separation has already occurred on iPhones and iPads, and comes after years of rumors that Apple was looking to discontinue iTunes and its clunky software. The new Music app is still expected to allow users to purchase digital songs, a method of consumption that is waning in the streaming era. Previous reports have indicated that Apple was looking to kill mp3 downloads altogether in favor of its Apple Music subscription product, but there’s no indication that’s happening yet.

 

 

https://genius.com/a/apple-will-announce-the-end-of-itunes-next-week

 

Full report: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-31/apple-s-future-ios-13-macos-10-15-watchos-6-tvos-13-mac-pro

 

Oddly enough, despite being a PC user, I use iTunes and have for years. It's format and layout have always made sense to me and it's one of the few Apple inventions I've used that *hasn't* frustrated me continually. The digital protections have been less strict and airtight than certain other media players, which has always made it relatively easy to play my stuff on non-Apple devices when needed (which has always surprised me.)

 

Guess it's time to find something else, though. Not to mention, start converting a shitton of music files.

Edited by Caffeine Freak

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Maybe their next software will finally support flac files...

 

A friend made me laugh when she told me she couldn't listen to a file I had sent her because iTunes can't handle flac files, in 2019.

 

I used Winamp for the longest time until I finally switched to the excellent Foobar a few years ago. I use Exact Audio Copy to convert my CDs to flac files.

 

 

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Whatever new apps they get, I hope they still support people's purchases... not to mention GIFT CARDS!

 

I guess that 50% market share loss means a lot. Perhaps someone realized oh we sell more than tunes! People are clearly too dumb to realize we offer more by the name alone. Like how Amazon exclusively sells plants from South America.

 

iTunes was good to me for a decade after WinAmp. After that I moved on to various streaming music sites and well anything can be found on Youtube now. Even Trent Reznor cited that as a big issue when trying to drum up business while working for iTunes / Mac.

 

Not to utterly derail the subject, but I see multiple apps that did what iTunes does as a bad thing. Google has a lot of apps that do the same thing:

 

Google has far too many apps to do the same thing. You can buy music and movies via Google Play Store, but you can buy music via Play Music and you can also buy movies via Play Movies. Oh wait... there's more! Youtube also sells movies! Even more amazing, they're monitored by different tech support. I tell Youtube's tech support hey I can't buy a Jurassic Park bundle, they tell me they don't have bundles. Know who does? Google Play Store and Play Movies. Know what else is weird? Play Movies will tell you about all the free movies or free movies from your subscription sites (but Netflix) yet it won't tell you about free movies via Youtube.

 

I can only hope Apple doesn't force people to put up with idiocy like that.

Edited by geo

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I tried iTunes years ago but didn't really like the design of it and never bought anything on there and then completely dropped it.

 

I stopped using Winamp ages ago and I now use AIMP for converting CD's and playing most of my music. I collect CD's so I don't use these streaming services and the only online music I play is on Youtube.

Edited by Doom_Dude

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At least they won't bother me with the spamming anymore, telling me I have unused iTunes credit... hopefully.

 

@Doom_Dude I stopped using Winamp for ages as well, but that was only because it was discontinued during the time. I have since switched to foobar2000, which does exactly what I wanted from Winamp. (Minus the llama ass-whipping.) Heck, I'm currently using it as I type this!

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I tried iTunes out with my iPod back in 2011. That was the only time I ever bought an Apple product. I didn't like it very much, and I just went back to good old VLC!

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Meh, I could never really figure out how to use iTunes properly.

 

I used to use it when someone first gave me their own iPod Classic (80GB) and I would sometimes end up deleting tracks when syncing the new ones, somehow. It was so irritating I had to choose a different program. Also no FLAC support, like seriously...

 

It had no use to me anymore.

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Good riddance. I never had a system depending on iTunes, but I well remember the times when my sister had constant trouble with her iPod and Apple's fundamentally non-functional synchronization feature that made it nearly impossible to share music with other people.

 

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iTunes is one of the worst user experiences ever. I had to install it exactly once every two years, when I bought a new iPhone and wanted to backup shit, and oh my god, is it the worst GUI ever. I am happily reading the news, that they finally want to abandon it. Nobody wants it anyway.

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6 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

Good riddance. I never had a system depending on iTunes, but I well remember the times when my sister had constant trouble with her iPod and Apple's fundamentally non-functional synchronization feature that made it nearly impossible to share music with other people.

 

 

I second this, along with iTunes just being a slow, bloated software in general.

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8 minutes ago, R4L said:

I second this, along with iTunes just being a slow, bloated software in general.

 

Oh yeah, +1 for this as well. I just remembered how god damned slow it was compared to other, more user-friendly and more efficient software such as CopyTrans Manager (I think that's what I used after I ditched iTunes).

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No loss to me, I use MP3s and various software programs on the PC..

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I've been a heavy user of Spotify for several years but I've found myself buying iTunes music in the past few years to use an app that transposes music (so I can try singing along in different keys). It will only work if I own it in my iTunes music library or I load it via the computer. Usually laziness wins out and i pay the dollar or so.

 

I agree with others in that that one of the things that still bugs me to this day since switching to iPhone, is the lack of ability to just send someone a music file (or any file really) that resides on my phone.

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I used to live and die by iTunes and even remember a time when it was considered quality software. Miller columns for organization was ingenius, and it was surprisingly powerful before the age of streaming media.

 

That time has long since passed, and it's beyond time it had a rewrite. Wish the rewrite was coming to Windows as well - it's still the only way to access my Apple Music subscription on my PC.

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The probably biggest issue with iTunes - unfortunately copied to all other second grade music software because, you know, Apple is God, and God cannot do wrong, is that it gives a flying fuck about where the files are stored, it stubbornly organises them by metadata and metadata alone, so good luck reorganizing your music collections after importing them - *MANUALLY*! I prefer players which honor the folder structure of the imported data and don't force the user to do work a machine was made for.

 

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