

Splitting the app up should help it load faster, run more smoothly and be better focused on individual tasks. As Apple vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, joked on Monday, the app now does so much that it’s almost a mini-operating system in its own right. The short answer is that iTunes has been due a rewrite for years. While we’re on it, other aspects of iTunes are sticking around too: the iTunes Store is remaining the iTunes Store, and you’ll still be able to buy songs, films and TV shows to download and keep from there.

iPhone and iPod users who still want to sync their devices with a Windows computer can carry on doing it the same way they always have. Good news (or bad, depending on your love for the venerable app): iTunes for Windows is going nowhere. Photograph: Apple What about iTunes for Windows? But how will I sync my iPod?Īll sync services will now be handled in the Finder: when you plug in an iPod or iPhone, simply click on the Finder icon in the dock to see a new option under Devices where all the management of a phone or iPad will now occur.Īn iPhone syncing in Finder. Some changes are still unclear but it seems likely that audiobooks will be moved to the Books app, as they have been on iOS, and that some management of iOS apps will be handled in the Mac App Store app. Music will continue to be the home of users’ downloaded music libraries, as well as how they listen to music streamed from the Apple Music service Podcasts will control which podcasts they’re subscribed to and offer access to the Apple Podcast directory (as well as a snazzy new AI-powered transcription service that lets listeners search podcasts by content for the first time) and TV will host all the TV shows and films users have downloaded.

The app’s core features will be split out over three new apps – Music, Podcasts and TV – as well as a few older ones. The update will come with a raft of changes to Mac apps, including the long-awaited demise of iTunes. This autumn, Apple will release the latest version of Mac OS, 10.15 Catalina, named after an island off the coast of Los Angeles.
