Hm, I wonder if I'll still be able to sync music and podcasts to my iPod.<p>My 10-plus-year-old iPod is <i>rock solid</i> 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.
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).<p>And what a long, slow, weird, decline it's been since then.
I was an iTunes obsessive from 2003-2012. Then uploaded all my music to the cloud and moved on. Still miss the functionality though.<p>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.
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.
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.<p>Admittedly I don't find iOS' Music app that much better, so I'm pretty wary of iTunes' upcoming replacement.
> The company is launching a trio of new apps for the Mac – Music, TV, and Podcasts – to replace iTunes.<p>Nice. It's always better to have multiple programs each dedicated to a specific task than one that tries to be everything.
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.
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.<p>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.
The arguments here between "file hierarchy" versus the "library/drawer/shoebox" styles of organization highlight a fundamental failing of traditional filesystems:<p>The need to store certain content under multiple horizontal categories (or folders.)<p>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.)<p>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.)
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.
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 <i>iTunes</i> on desktop". So this is a positive development.
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.
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.
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.<p>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 :)
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.<p>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.
Hallelujah.<p>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.<p>May it rot in hell forever.
> 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.<p>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.
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.
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.<p>Hopefully any successor will be like Android.
Good move. I predicted this in my 'iTunes will never work well' post: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12527098" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12527098</a><p>"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."