I kind of get the feeling that that's coming. I have no proof, of course, but I just have the feeling that Apple isn't satisfied with the current setup, either.<p>Indeed, we saw the Mac App Store launch as a separate application instead of being jammed into iTunes.<p>It's a lot easier to make new things separate than to break up all the existing stuff. I imagine the iTunes break-up will come, I just hope it doesn't take too long to get there.
More than that - you shouldn't even <i>need</i> a full blown PC or Mac to use an iDevice [1]. Syncing should largely be over-the-air, with a Time Capsule/Airport Extreme style device. OS updates could be done from such a device, too - they have USB ports after all.<p>Although it's risky as Apple might shut you down, I think it <i>could</i> be done by a third party with some effort. If our startup ends up going nowhere and nobody has done it by then, we will.[2] The potential is insane, IMO. It's crazy how many people we know who either <i>have</i> an iPad as their main computing device, or who would be served well by it if they didn't have to maintain a classic personal computer to back up/update the iPad.<p>[1] Syncing should still be better than the current iTunes situation if you do.<p>[2] Maybe, <i>maybe</i> we can eventually do it as a side project without losing too much focus. I think the market is bigger than for our current product, but it's also much riskier, and would realistically require investment, whereas we can in theory bootstrap indefinitely right now.
You can already do some of those things in a 3rd party app via API (except for in-app purchases and iTunes authentication). Of course there are downsides like the AppleScript API kind of sucks and you need iTunes app running for it to work.<p>However to really become a platform iTunes needs to move to the cloud. Let's hope Apple will get it right with their rumored iTunes streaming service.