
Apple Plans End of iTunes - SebastianFrelle
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-31/apple-s-future-ios-13-macos-10-15-watchos-6-tvos-13-mac-pro
======
jrochkind1
Hm, I wonder if I'll still be able to sync music and podcasts to my iPod.

My 10-plus-year-old iPod is _rock solid_ technology, hardware and software,
just keeps on working. At this point it feels like some retro SF alternate
vision of the future we could have had, with simple easy to use things that
never broke.

~~~
koyote
Do you walk with your iPod in your pocket?

The reason I am asking is because I am surprised yours has lasted so long. I
had two and they broke within two years due to the mechanical hdd inside. (the
headphones also broke, within a month each time; really put me off buying
Apple products again)

~~~
jrochkind1
Yeah, I've got a nano 4th generation, no moving parts in there, it should last
forever, or until the battery goes, but battery still going just fine for me,
can play more music than I've needed without a recharge.

------
nategri
I remember when iTunes came out for Windows ca. 2003. I had friends with Macs
so I leapt at the chance to try it for myself---it just seemed lightyears
ahead of whatever I was using to interface with my music library at the time
(Winamp, probably).

And what a long, slow, weird, decline it's been since then.

~~~
kvark
Minority here, I never understood why music players shifted towards iTune-ish
style of owning and re-categorizing everything in their own way... I mean, OS
has a file system, why not just rely on it? Throw some searchable tags in, and
you get the same abilities but without obscurity.

~~~
chrisseaton
Because despite what everyone thinks again and again, music is not
hierarchical, as a file system is. Does my album go under the composer, the
conductor, the orchestra or the soloist?

~~~
brians
Hard links are going to blow your mind.
[https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Hard-
Link...](https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Hard-Links.html)

Seriously, I had my MP3s organized this way pre-iTunes. I get why that can’t
scale to the general public, but I still think a tool could approximate it.

~~~
chrisseaton
> Hard links are going to blow your mind.

I know what hard links are.

> I get why that can’t scale to the general public

So why suggest it as a solution?

> pre-iTunes

So even you gave up on it?

~~~
mixmastamyk
Imagine... a program that could automate this for you. We could call it an
"Application."

------
habosa
I was an iTunes obsessive from 2003-2012. Then uploaded all my music to the
cloud and moved on. Still miss the functionality though.

Two days ago I wanted to rent a movie for an airplane, so I opened up iTunes
on my Mac. I'm not kidding, in order to rent this movie I had to type in my
password 8 times and confirm so many dialogs I almost gave up. If your
purchase flow is that bad, you just don't care anymore. So not surprised
they're gonna end it.

------
psychometry
As someone who prefers to own music and organize it how I want, this is
incredibly disappointing. I have no doubt that Apple Music will include only a
fraction of the features I've come to depend on.

~~~
chrisseaton
If you want to organise your music how you want, why were you using iTunes in
the first place - an app which organises your music for you? Surely it was
already not suitable for your particular workflow and never aimed or claimed
to be?

~~~
SomeOldThrow
> an app which organises your music for you

How do you figure? Itunes is completely unaware of most qualities of music, in
fact nearly everything unattested in metadata.

~~~
chrisseaton
I don't know how you manage your music, but when I use iTunes I just drop it
on the icon and it gets filed away (organised) for me.

~~~
tkxxx7
> and it gets filed away (organised) for me

This is optional, there's a "let iTunes manage my music for me" checkbox
somewhere.

------
ProfessorLayton
Good riddance. iTunes went from one of my favorite music players, to an app I
loathe to use every day at work just to listen to my Apple Music subscription.

Admittedly I don't find iOS' Music app that much better, so I'm pretty wary of
iTunes' upcoming replacement.

~~~
will_pseudonym
I'm genuinely curious: why not use an alternative to Apple Music?

~~~
ProfessorLayton
Great question:

\- I'm all-in the Apple ecosystem (iPhone, Watch, ATV4K, Airport Express). So
are my family members.

\- I'm on a family plan so $15/4 is a price that can't be beat. I do not live
with the family members I share the plan with. This is relevant because:

\- I actually had a friend share their Spotify Family plan with me and Spotify
insisted I prove I lived in the same address! Apple doesn't ask for anything
beyond linking Apple IDs to a family.

\- The actual service/catalog provided by AM is fantastic, but overall I'm
very unsatisfied with the UX of Apple's music apps.

------
MBCook
Just please let me keep my star ratings instead of having to switch to thumbs
up/down.

------
biql
> The company is launching a trio of new apps for the Mac – Music, TV, and
> Podcasts – to replace iTunes.

Nice. It's always better to have multiple programs each dedicated to a
specific task than one that tries to be everything.

~~~
derp_dee_derp
not nice.

Apple is very open about their long term plan to convert to a media and
services company. Their business plan is to 1) get you to change over to these
3 new apps now when they are free, 2) convert each to a paid monthly
subscription plan once enough people use them.

so soon you'll be paying for 3 things instead of being able to use iTunes like
it is now.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
Apple is not splitting up the apps on macOS as part of a nefarious plan to
make you pay more money. They're doing it because the apps have been split on
iOS for years already:

\- The new Music app will have the ability to play local music, so it won't
need a subscription. (Conversely, you can get an Apple Music subscription with
iTunes right now.)

\- The TV app will likely function just like the iOS one: if you have videos
in your library that are playable by it, it'll play them, no subscription. If
you subscribe to a TV "channel," it'll show up there. (This presumably
includes the forthcoming Apple TV+ service, but there are no details about its
pricing model yet.)

\- Again, the Podcasts app will likely function just like the iOS one, which
means it's not something that Apple is making money from. You subscribe to
podcast feeds in it the same way you do in any other podcast player.

To be clear, I'm not saying Apple doesn't actively have nefarious plans to
make you pay more money -- I'm just saying this isn't one of them.

------
vondur
If this is true, and it follows Apple normal software re-write playbook, then
the new replacement will have hardly any functionality compared the current
iTunes version.

~~~
1over137
Yes, if it's anything like, for example, iPhotos -> Photos.app, then they'll
remove all kinds of useful things and make the UI worse.

------
wtmt
The only feature I want back is full app sync with a computer, like it used to
be some years ago (both transferring from the iOS device to the computer and
back from the computer to the iOS device). This was removed when app thinning
was introduced, and partially retained in the iTunes version for enterprise.

This saves bandwidth when managing multiple devices, makes setting up a new
device a whole lot faster (than waiting for apps to download), offers control
on the app versions and also helps in cases when some developer removes an app
from the store because they want customers to buy another app or a differently
named one.

~~~
acolumb
Now, iTunes backups (which historically took up gobs of space on the tiny
MacBook drives of years past,) only save app _data_ , and restoring will take
up the aforementioned bandwidth.

That’s why I use an iOS 6 iPhone 5 with iTunes 11 on OS X Mavericks.

------
madengr
Will I still be able to rip CDs and put them on my phone? Yes, I’m old
fashioned and still only purchase on CD.

~~~
thirdsun
Just use XLD to rip CDs. Since there isn’t any Mac with a disc drive left I
don’t see this being migrated to the new app.

------
herf
All backups have to go to iCloud now?

~~~
saagarjha
> Without iTunes, customers can manage their Apple gadgets through the Music
> app.

Presumably this will get moved into Music.

~~~
abstrct
This section was super disappointing. It sounds more like iTunes is being
rebranded to Music since it’s still going to be the hub for managing iOS
devices. What exactly is changing here other than the name?

~~~
saagarjha
Some of the ancillary features are getting refactored out, it seems. Plus the
app might be getting a rewrite so it's not some awful C++ cross-platform
hybrid?

------
Razengan
The arguments here between "file hierarchy" versus the
"library/drawer/shoebox" styles of organization highlight a fundamental
failing of traditional filesystems:

The need to store certain content under multiple horizontal categories (or
folders.)

For example I will add the same song to multiple playlists, for different
moods and activities, or a photo may have multiple elements that I might
search for (e.g. "nature", "warm", "urban" etc.)

Symlinks/Aliases are too cumbersome. Tags help alleviate this a little, but
they're still a tacked-on layer instead of a core FS feature in modern OSes
(even macOS has inconsistent UI support for tags and becomes unwieldy if you
have hundreds of tags.)

~~~
mixmastamyk
I've used playlists since the 90s, there is no technical issue preventing
their use from a filesystem.

~~~
Razengan
Of course. "Playlists" are a layer over the filesystem to make up for
deficiencies of a traditional filesystem.

Playlist-like organization is useful for a lot of other types of content
besides music, so why not bring those features back into the filesystem layer?

------
Silhouette
What does this men for getting data onto and off iDevices from non-Apple
equipment like Windows PCs? Apple has always stubbornly refused to support
standardised formats and transfer protocols for a lot of widely useful data
types, and if you didn't want to trust your data to iCloud then the PC iTunes
application was one of the few other officially supported ways to move things
onto or off your mobile devices. It would be great if their push to make their
devices stronger candidates to replace general purpose PCs included
improvements here, because iTunes on Windows is pretty bad, but it would be a
concern if this actually heralds a move further in the other direction.

------
_bxg1
The main factor keeping me on Deezer instead of switching to Apple Music since
getting an iPhone has been "Oh god, I'd have to use _iTunes_ on desktop". So
this is a positive development.

------
dang
This article falls loosely into the "announcement of an announcement"
category, which is off topic for HN. There's no harm in waiting for the
announcement itself.

------
CraigRood
I'm torn on this one. Part of me loves iTunes and it does so much more than
the typical user will ever realise, but the other part of me sees that iTunes
is come to the end of the road and an entire rebuild of the Apple Music app
needs to happen. I still miss features like iTunes DJ. It was the best way to
just click play and enjoy your library, and hasn't been replaced by any player
that I know of including Spotify.

------
bwb
Wow, glad to hear it, but what a cool piece of software. I was so excited when
it came to Windows and it helped me slowly move over to Mac which I am super
happy with.

Good move as the thing went from doing x to doing a-z and being so bloated. I
am happy to see it streamlined into a few apps again :)

------
wuunderbar
I really hope the next iOS makes some sort of "leapfrog" UX change where we
move away from icons on a grid for the home screen, especially for iPad.

I know this may alienate and confuse some iOS users, but I trust Apple can
figure out some way for this to be intuitive for their users.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Why?

~~~
RickS
I work on cross platform design for a fortune 500. We keep our eye on this
kind of thing.

In conversation, the consensus among my peers was that the separation between
iOS and OSX is destined to be impermanent. Phones are becoming more complex,
and more integral to our every routine. But more significantly, they're
raising a new generation of digital natives that have different expectations
about UI and its scale, density, information architecture, onboarding,
collaboration, and storage, to name a few.

These mobile-first expectations are flavoring desktop software, and smoothing
over the once rough edges of highly-compact power user software. Gmail's
redesign, and most redesigns really, demonstrate this. Less information,
displayed in a more opinionated way, with whitespace and garnish and a focus
on golden-path big-brother-knows-best presentation over configuration and
optimization for power users.

Desktop and mobile trends are slowly converging, and I think that when it
comes, that convergence from apple risks being abrupt and unapologetic.
They're like that – with flash, the headphone jack, and the touch bar. They
wait a long time, but when they make a move, they really rip the bandaid.

I find this future to be sad and scary, for the most part. But I agree that
the icon grid home screen abstraction feels more like a "because it's always
been that way" thing than anything else. It's a holdover from the blackberry
days. Given how far mobile apps have come in the mean time, the mobile phone's
desktop/start menu is ready for some new abstractions.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I see a conversational, transactional OS leading the way to the next
generation of UIs. No more cockpits. Not sure Apple has laid any groundwork
for that. Amazon is positioned.

~~~
RickS
> conversational, transactional OS

Can you talk more about this? Conversational as in "voice/nonphysical primary
input"? or "user offers abstract intent and computer sorts it out" instead of
"user negotiates with computer via GUI", both, more?

What's Amazon done here that positions them well?

------
forrestthewoods
Hallelujah.

iTunes is the single worst piece of software I have ever used. It’s the only
software I’ve seen bring someone to literal tears. And it’s done that to more
than a couple of family members.

May it rot in hell forever.

~~~
lucisferre
> iTunes is the single worst piece of software I have ever used

I mean sure it's bad, but I find it hard to take this statement literally for
any HN reader.

*Note that is not a comment about HN UX, just that anyone who uses software and technology extensively has to have used some pretty terrible software products in their lifetime.

~~~
forrestthewoods
I thought about it, but no I think iTunes is actually the worst.

Some software is broken. It doesn’t work. But iTunes is so bloated and janky I
don’t think I could design something that bad if I tried. The concept of
“syncing” is completely wrong in a multi-device context Venn diagram.

Plus iTunes has literally brought friends and family to tears. Actual tears.
No other software has done that.

------
6gvONxR4sf7o
I'd better still be able to access all the media I've bought on iTunes, and
I'd better still be able to access it on my PC.

------
mac01021
> Without iTunes, customers can manage their Apple gadgets through the Music
> app.

For a moment, I thought it sounded like a good plan.

------
amaccuish
If there was an iPod Classic that supported syncing with Spotify I'd be all
over it.

------
mrgalaxy
> Apple has pushed the iPad as a laptop replacement for years. But many pro
> users have noted that while the hardware is capable enough, the software is
> still behind.

As other HN users have noted in the past, until Apple gives me access to a
terminal where I can run the command line tools required for my work, I have
absolutely zero interest in replacing my laptop with an iPad.

~~~
untog
You are in a tiny minority. I say this as a fellow member of that minority.
But our complaints have (and should have) very little to do with what Apple
does or doesn't do with iPads.

~~~
rusk
Except that you need developers to build an ecosystem and Apple is currently
alienating them in droves. _developers developera developers_ as a wise man
once said

~~~
rifung
How does that argument follow? Apple needs developers but they don't need
those developers writing code using an iPad do they?

After all, iPhones have an endless amount of apps but nobody (or close enough
to nobody) is developing apps using their iPhone.

~~~
rusk
The stuff they do themselves is terrible; they need third parties and they
need a thriving market place to develop talent and competency.

------
lwansbrough
The article also mentions new tools for building cross-device apps. I hope
that induces a non-superficial commitment to PWAs but sadly I wouldn’t bet on
it.

~~~
CraftThatBlock
I believe this is related to Marzipan, Apple's way to turn iPad apps into Mac
apps. Eventually will support iPhones too

------
sys_64738
iTunes was so finicky to get music onto iPods with. I prefer mounting the
drive as a folder and copying manually. Android easily does this but it feels
like a struggle with iTunes.

Hopefully any successor will be like Android.

------
vbezhenar
Sounds like they just changing the name.

------
jrs95
I wonder if this also means the end of the WebObjects stuff currently backing
iTunes, or if this stuff will just be consumed by Music now.

~~~
jrs95
...anyone want to explain why they have a problem with this? Personally I find
it really interesting that a web framework that dates back to NeXT is still in
production behind widely used software.

------
firasd
Good move. I predicted this in my 'iTunes will never work well' post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12527098](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12527098)

"At this point, whatever the causes of the product problems with iTunes and
related iOS apps — feature scope, management, team structure, etc. —we can be
pretty sure that the only ‘solution’ will appear when this software achieves
end-of-life, the same way that the mystery of how to set recording time on
VCRs was finally solved by their obsolescence."

~~~
scarface74
Yes iTunes “never worked well” even though at its height it was the number one
music store in the US....

~~~
firasd
Fair enough. My claim was from September 2016, predicting that it will never
work well in the future (and the UX problems I highlighted were from 2010
onwards.) I think it was pretty obvious that the app will need to be unbundled
(about an year after my post, Apple started removing some features from iTunes
like the iOS App store).

I'm sure people liked it in 2004 (although I never was blown away by it.) Also
the fact that it was the #1 store can reflect music distribution agreements
(and the success of iPod/iPhone) more than its prowess as a product.

