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SAN JOSE, Calif. (KTVU) - Apple announced an end to the iTunes era at WWDC 2019, Apple’s annual developer conference on Monday. The upcoming MacOS Catalina, slated to release this fall, will replace iTunes with three separate apps - Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and the Apple TV app.
With the Catalina update, iPhones and iPods will sync through the sidebar in finder, instead of iTunes popping up every time an iOS device is synced to a Mac.
In screenshots shown at the keynote, Apple Music looks like iTunes without all the extra bloatware.
The Podcasts app will bring the same functionality of the iOS podcast app to the Mac, and will feature new categories, curated collections, and advanced search tools that let users search by host, guest, and discussion topic.
Apple says it is using machine learning to index podcast content to make it easier to search and find podcast content on the device.
The upcoming Apple TV app will host its upcoming Apple TV+ service, apart from its catalog of iTunes movies and TV shows to browse, buy or rent. The TV app also brings 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos support.
Apple didn’t say if it’s going to be extending the same courtesy to Windows users at the keynote. Apple later told reporters that iTunes would continue existing in its current state on Windows.
iTunes was first launched in 2001 on the Mac, with a Windows version released in 2003. The software has been long criticized for being bloated and unwieldy.