Apple is killing off iTunes

[cuttime]

This may have been buried in another thread:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... 13-mac-pro

[stubbsonic]

In its race to become more "modern" iTunes has (at least to me) become more of a hassle to use. It makes assumptions about how I use it and they are often wrong. When iTunes got rid of app management for iOS devices, I was able to install a previous version that continued to support the apps section.

I suppose iTunes could return to being a full featured media hub, and re-work the feature bloat to things that can be enabled or disabled in preferences.

The question is what is the best way to manage apps on devices. I really liked being able to do this on my computer, and I'd hate to see that go away. Perhaps another app (besides iTunes). The App Store might be a logical place to do this. There could be a non-device-specific App Store for Mac and iOS that would allow management that way.

It has been a bizarre era as devices got more powerful CPU and less powerful apps. Things became easier to use for technophobes and more of a hassle to do real work for technophiles. YMMV

[monkey man]

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

The obvious question for I and others who're wedded to iTunes exclusively for their music libraries to ask must surely be, "Will the new 'Music' app seamlessly handle my existing iTunes-music library?"

It took me friggin' 8+ years to put it together and tag and sort everything the way I like. I posted long ago about my method here, but basically it doesn't use the "Artist / Album Artist" field conventionally. Instead, I prepend artist names to album titles in the album field and use genre in the artist one to ensure that my physical-storage layout is neat.

Having done this for many thousands of songs, I've kinda relied on iTunes' being around for a helluva-long time; it's the soul of my home-stereo unit and has been for years. I don't want to change this!

[stubbsonic]

I have always hated that iTunes was the default player of mp3, and that it would keep a list of every tiny little sample file I play. So early on, I got in the habit of changing the default player for all audio (mp3, aif, wav, etc) to be the QT player.

I do use Mac's iTunes as my podcast downloader, and I play podcasts either from iTunes (Mac) or copy the mp3 onto a little non-apple media player. I do sometimes use iTunes tag editing capabilities. But there are some features it lacks (like filename ---> title and vice versa).

Though I have had an iPad for quite some number of years and I have NEVER even opened iTunes on it. I play media from the aforementioned media player, or from my Android phone.

I wonder how Apple will handle people who continue to use legacy iTunes. How long will those people get the same service from the iTunes services.

[cuttime]

Many questions remain to be answered, but, fingers crossed, the best possible solution would be the backward compatibility analogy of when iPhoto was retired. Photos gave you the opportunity to import your iPhoto library on start. That is, if we'll even be dealing with actual files. Surely the new music service won't be streaming only. Surely?

[monkey man]

One can only hope so, cuttime. Not everything is still available online anyway, let alone positioned-for-streaming.

By "everything" I'm of course including all the stuff we have in our libraries that isn't for sale, such as demos, be they ours, friends' or product ones and anything else we might have that was never released.

[bayswater]

Good riddance. It’s been a dog’s breakfast for years.

[stubbsonic]

For some apps, iTunes is the ONLY way to get files in or out. Granted those apps should be making use of cloud storage.

[James Steele]

For some apps, iTunes is the ONLY way to get files in or out. Granted those apps should be making use of cloud storage.

Another reason I hang back on iOS 11.3.1 and my jailbroken 6S+. There are apps like Filza that allow you to browse the entire iPhone directory structure and copy individual files to your Mac. I use it all the time to extract large MOV files and not worry that they’ll get compressed.

[bayswater]

I like that the new OS will display devices in the Finder. That's how the iPod 1.0 worked. It was all downhill from there.

[mhschmieder]

No worries -- it has been clarified that our uploaded libraries (from CD's), and our playlists, will carry over to Apple Music.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210200

It's even the first two line items in Apple's own article!

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/06 ... -and-more/

I haven't had time to read the Ars Technica article above (maybe later tonight), but hopefully it clears up questions for people here as well.

As I exclusively use iTunes as a librarian of regular audio (not MP3's), and for playlists of stuff I'm working on for gigs, my own music, and music I am producing, I now look forward to the change as it will remove clutter that I never use.

[bayswater]

As I exclusively use iTunes as a librarian of regular audio (not MP3's), and for playlists of stuff I'm working on for gigs, my own music, and music I am producing, I now look forward to the change as it will remove clutter that I never use.

That would be good, but it didn't happen with podcasts. If anything the Podcast app has more clutter than the equivalent function in iTunes had.

[mikehalloran]

https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/03/itunes-isnt-dead/

[bayswater]

https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/03/itunes-isnt-dead/

"So don't believe the headlines: iTunes isn't dead, it's multiplying."

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Itunes is people! It's people!!