
Apple ‘On Schedule’ to Terminate Music Downloads by 2019 - jrochkind1
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/12/06/apple-terminate-music-downloads/
======
heavymark
Am I missing something? This appears to be some random site with a random
source but all the comments here seem to be treating this as a real source.

~~~
shakna
> Apple has told DMN that no such phase-out plan exists. One source has
> repeatedly insisted that the plan not only exists, but that it is ‘on
> schedule,’ or even ahead of the original schedule.

Apple denied it when they first said it, and they deny it now. [0] But some
anonymous source continues to say it, as of two years ago.

I'm not seeing why DMN should be taken seriously.

[0] [http://mashable.com/2016/05/12/apple-itunes-kill-
downloads-m...](http://mashable.com/2016/05/12/apple-itunes-kill-downloads-
music/#E.ClrFTl18qE)

------
benmarks
> "All of that is raising concerns about an overloaded iTunes, especially
> among Apple engineers who are increasingly frustrated with the platform."

How were they not frustrated before? I can't be the only person (engineer or
civilian) who finds iTunes to be among the worst applications Apple's
produced, and it's been that way for years.

~~~
ksec
Should be Corrected as : I can't be the only person (engineer or civilian) who
finds iTunes to be among the worst applications _ever_ been produced, and it's
been that way for years.

~~~
benmarks
Agree, was trying to come up with examples of worse software and failed.

------
bhauer
> _Pulling out lower-performing formats, especially music downloads, helps to
> solve the issue._

Yeah, that's the problem with iTunes. The ability to play local music files
really bogs it down. /sarcasm

I don't use iTunes, so I don't care if they do this as long as the vendors I
do use (Amazon, Burning Shed, Bandcamp, etc.) continue to provide downloads.

------
ioquatix
I can't help feel like a customer stuck in a consumer's world sometimes. I
love buying and supporting individual artists on Bandcamp.

~~~
rexf
Same, if this article is accurate, it would phase out the channel (iTunes
store) that I use to buy singles & albums digitally. I don't buy music files
from Amazon or Google, since the UX is better as an iPhone user with iTunes
music store.

I use Spotify for general listening, but certain tracks, I'll buy on iTunes to
have available offline (for what I thought was an indefinite period of time).

~~~
SyneRyder
If you download the files to your laptop, you'll still have those files to
keep and transfer between your devices. I bought most of my music on iTunes,
then copied it across to my Android device via a microSD card.

(Incidentally, I'm still looking for a good Android music player for my
offline files. Google Play Music works, but it isn't very elegant & it's hard
to browse when you have lots of artists. I guess I'm wondering what the modern
day Android equivalent of Winamp is.)

~~~
jakecopp
Poweramp [1] has a really nice UI (even with an ugly website) and properly
refreshes when new music is added to the filesystem. I wrote some code [2] to
rsync my music from iTunes to my Android phone over wifi as I got sick of all
the buggy syncing solutions.

[1]: [http://powerampapp.com/](http://powerampapp.com/) [2]:
[https://github.com/jakecoppinger/android-itunes-
rsync](https://github.com/jakecoppinger/android-itunes-rsync)

~~~
fro0116
I've been using Syncthing [0] for syncing music between all of my devices
(Android phone included) for quite a while and it has always worked perfectly
for me.

Curious if you also consider that one of those "buggy syncing solutions" you
mentioned? And if so, what issues have you experienced with it?

[0] [https://syncthing.net/](https://syncthing.net/)

------
sandworm101
>>> and the grayed out collection becomes de minimis.

Ya, it's de minimus until my favorite tunes go away. You don't have to be a
conspiracy nut to understand what is going on here. They don't want old music
on their new devices. Me listening to an old MP3 of my favorite band is, to
Apple (or google or anyone else) a waste. Every minute I;m listening to that
I'm not listening to <<hip new pop song 12>> via a streaming service. No data
to extract. No products to pitch. No data plan to top up. No need to link my
car's stereo to the cell network.

We are free to listen to anything we want, so long as its on _today 's_ list
of approved tracks. Just forget what you were listening to yesterday. Pretend
it never existed, because it doesn't exist and never did. I cannot think of
anything more antithetical to rock and roll than calling any music 'de
minimus'.

My car's stereo plays mp3s. It plays them when I am in the mountains and out
of cell range. It plays them when I am on the lower deck of a car ferry. It
plays them when my phone is dead and I don't have a charger. It plays them
regardless of what boarder I cross. It will play anything I ask regardless of
where it came from. And it won't tell anyone what I listen too alone in the
car on my way to work. Nothing in Apple's walled garden shows that sort of
loyalty.

~~~
freeloop3
The world is being fractured right now into too many individual groups. It
used to be that if you strayed to far from the opinions of your peers, you
would be isolated, and forced to come back to the center. This restricted
freedom, but allowed for unity and made for a stronger, more cohesive and well
adjusted population.

Nowadays, there is no center. No matter where your individual preferences lead
you, there is a group on the internet to validate them. With everyone pursuing
different goals and interests, there is no center anymore. This leads to
disharmony and chaos.

By Apple controlling what you listen to and when, they are attempting to help
society. If you, me, and everyone else was excited about the new Miley Cyrus
album, think of how much more together we'd be as a whole. We'd have something
in common with our physical neighbors, something to talk about and share.
Being part of a collective, IRL, is far better than the poor substitute of
some Reddit group.

In the end, what Apple is doing is _helping people_. And, I for one, can't see
how anyone can so readily dismiss what they are doing as bad, simply because
they limit the functionality of their products a little bit.

~~~
mnm1
If that's what you call helping, I don't want any part of it. I prefer not to
be force fed garbage by Apple or anyone else. Why would society need a center
that's formed of mediocre--at best--culture? Why shouldn't people be able to
have their own opinions that are different from those of their "peers". Sorry,
what you describe is rather nauseating and disgusting. If this is what Apple
does, the less of it society gets exposed to, the better. This isn't helping--
it's controlling. I'm not sure you understand what "helping" means at all.

------
bob_theslob646
If true, quite shocking for Apple's music's monetization ability. I would
consider it a falling from grace since they were "trailblazers" and changed
the industry with the iPod.

>The iPod is a line of portable media players and multi-purpose pocket
computers[2] designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was
released on October 23, 2001, about 8 1⁄2 months after the Macintosh version
of iTunes was released. As of July 27, 2017, only the iPod Touch remains in
production.[3]([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod))

Music sales have been dying for a while though and turns out , a Apple was
apart of it.

>Since the introduction the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, music sales
have plummeted in the United States -- from $11.8 billion in 2003 to $7.1
billion last year(2013), according to the Recording Industry Association of
America. ([http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/25/technology/itunes-music-
decl...](http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/25/technology/itunes-music-
decline/index.html))

~~~
taspeotis
Yeah sure but streaming is where it's at now, and Apple have a piece of that
pie. So I don't know why it's a fall from grace. They know which way the wind
is blowing.

[https://www.ft.com/content/94c5cdb0-4a26-11e7-a3f4-c742b9791...](https://www.ft.com/content/94c5cdb0-4a26-11e7-a3f4-c742b9791d43)

> Streaming revenues will rise 37 per cent to $9.1bn in 2017, PwC estimates,
> while sales of physical formats will drop 10 per cent to $7.7bn

~~~
x0x0
Letting Spotify, rather than Apple themselves, cannibalize music download
sales was stupid.

Also, it's the end of one of Apple's moats: your previous purchases. Spotify
works on any device. I will say that Spotify is pretty shit on Android, but
that's just laziness on their part. (Issues I've had, all on stock Nexus or
HTC android phones: crashing. Muting google maps. Not pausing when
disconnecting headphones. My laptop and phone fighting over who controls the
playlist. Playlist corruption. Their Android team is, at best, C players. And
lazy ones. Every time I get suckered into letting Spotify update there's a new
bug.)

~~~
scarface74
Music hasn't been an Apple "moat" for the iPhone since shortly after it was
introduced. Apple started selling DRM Fred music that you could play anywhere
by 2009.

------
kirykl
So this is just a rumor with anyonymous source reported by a single site?

------
stefan69
So what happens to all these albums we've bought on the iTunes Store? Despite
the money we've poured in, we are on the same level than the next kid who just
joined the Apple Music streaming service last month? That will push people to
reconsider their loyalty to the company and their service.

~~~
otterley
Nothing AFAIK; they’re plain old AAC files. Apple eliminated FairPlay DRM on
its iTunes Store purchases ages ago.

~~~
BashiBazouk
My guess to what the GP is asking is if the files will still be downloadable
from Apple even if they are not selling the tracks anymore. My reading of the
article, makes the answer to that question vague, saying:

“But you can always go back and listen to the downloads, they always will
work,”

Does that mean if you still have the files, they will work (which is obviously
the case) or does that mean they are available to download at anytime once
bought from Apple, but will not be available to be purchased in the future...

~~~
rconti
The re-download feature is actually relatively new (though my hazy memory is
thinking it's probably more like 10 years old now...)

------
LeoPanthera
Well I guess I have to go back to buying CDs, then?

I will always want to own my music collection.

~~~
stefan69
Or vinyls :)

------
dzhiurgis
I keep catching iTunes use over 1GB of memory without even playing any music.

Additionally, playing and managing the music you OWN is becoming harder and
harder with each release. I’m sure they’ll kill this feature eventually.

------
ksec
I really wish we could have a different Model. I dont really like Streaming
Music because I am not owning the Music at all, I am merely getting some
access to it. And many times Music Label decide they stop providing access on
the Platform, that means some parts of my music collection are gone.

I really wish we could have a hybrid approach. For the same price per month, I
can only listen to the same song maximum of 15 times a month, and it gives me
some credit to buy music. And those Credit are accumulative.

------
fernly
Seems like it should be technically feasible to capture the bits of a streamed
song. Are there rogue players that can divert the content to a file?

~~~
LeoPanthera
iTunes will happily stream Apple Music to an AirPlay device, and AirPlay is
unencrypted ALAC.

Alternatively simply play through a digital audio output and capture it that
way.

~~~
devwastaken
>Alternatively simply play through a digital audio output and capture it that
way.

You have no way of knowing what the data's original quality is at, and its
introducing artifacts from analog output back into a digital form, which is
then outputted to analog again. Its an option, sure, but its like saying "get
all your music on youtube."

~~~
namelost
They are suggesting going digital-out (on the source) to digital-in. No
analog.

But as pointed out Audio Hijack does the same thing virtually with a kernel
extension.

------
scarface74
I'm almost sure that Apple still sells more music than movies and almost
certainly tv shows. If they have kept those, I doubt they will discontinue
music sells. It's not like it costs a lot to support.

~~~
bob_theslob646
Source?

~~~
scarface74
Well no direct source but if Apple is going to discontinue sells of music
because of declines, then they would also do the same for movies.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-itunes-falls-short-in-
ba...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-itunes-falls-short-in-battle-for-
video-viewers-1499601601)

And what do you think would be the totally addressable market of selling tv
shows when you can get almost any broadcast tv network show on demand a day
after it airs through your cable company for free and a week after it airs for
free from the websites/apps of AbC, NBC, CBS, and FOX.

You can get any TV show on demand the next morning from the CW whether or not
you have a subscription.

If you have cable and miss a show it's available usually the next day on
demand either from the cable company or by signing in using your cable
credentials from the individual cable providers apps.

Then take into account that almost everyone has a device that they can buy and
play digital music on in the optimal method. How many people who want to buy
video digitally and would prefer to watch it on a TV have an AppleTV?

AppleTV is far from the most popular settop box and it's the only way that you
can watch content on a TV (besides connecting your iPhone with a $70 gadget).
Both Google Play and Amazon work on the most popular set top box - the roku.

------
cpt1138
What are they planning to do when you have no connection?

~~~
tantalor
_You can also download your content so that you can listen to or watch it when
you 're not connected to the Internet._

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204839](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT204839)

------
jlgaddis
TL;DR: Unsubstantiated clickbait.

------
Reason077
I terminated music downloads in about 2009 - right about when Spotify came
out.

I do frequently use the offline playlists feature, however.

~~~
dzhiurgis
How do you tolerate 192kbps?

~~~
Yetanfou
Really?

\- how do you 'tolerate' driving over less than perfectly flat roads?

\- how do you 'tolerate' looking through a window which was cleaned more than
half an hour ago?

\- how do you 'tolerate' using last year's PC?

\- how do you 'tolerate' linving in less than a full democracy?

\- how do you 'tolerate' ... well, anything 'less than perfect'?

192 Kbps is perfectly usable for most occasions. You're not going to hear the
difference while listening in a car, using a pair of 'less than perfect'
headphones, in a noisy environment. If you want to listen to music with high
dynamic variations in ideal listening conditions you might want to use
something better but that's about it.

~~~
dzhiurgis
In all of those cases I have no choice.

I do, however, have a choice for listening using high-end system while most
headphones and cars make no difference in fidelity.

Then there is problem of fragmentation. Far from all artists use same network,
so you'll end up paying for multiple services to get the same thing.

~~~
Yetanfou
There is no fragmentation if you insist on getting downloadable content.
Storage is cheap, get your own server and stuff it with your music. Install a
streaming server (something like _Subsonic_ / _Madsonic_ /etc comes to mind,
_mpd_ also works when configured correctly) and point your devices at it.

------
api
Tomorrow I cancel Apple music and start using Bandcamp more. Something I've
been meaning to do for a long time and this pushes me over the edge.

Bandcamp needs an app where I can listen and buy with one click.

~~~
__david__
I don't understand how that follows from the story. Can you explain your
thinking here?

