Apple's iTunes has been a pop culture phenomenon of the 21st century and became synonymous with the general shift in media consumption to the digital world. However, iTunes as we know it will soon cease to exist as Apple plans on breaking the service into separate applications.
9to5Mac reports developer Steve Troughton-Smith says there is evidence to suggest Apple is working on individual apps for Music, Podcasts, and maybe Books for macOS.
The move coincides with the recently announced Apple TV service and the related TV app for Mac. People started speculating Apple would launch its other apps individually on MacOS and Troughton-Smith believes this is the case.
It is worth noting this seems to be specifically for Mac at the moment and not for iOS devices like iPhone and iPad. The report says the likely launch of individual iTunes app will be the next major macOS build, version 10.15.
Music, TV, and Podcasts will be separated but look largely the same. Books will also be included and will revive a new design. The new app will mirror Apple's News app closely, with a sidebar and narrower titles bar that houses different navigation items such as Book Store, Library, and so on.
Development
Apple will build the new apps on Marzipan, its technology that allows iOS applications to port to macOS without additional coding.
Interestingly, iTunes will remain a part of macOS through version 10.15 as it will still be used as the syncing service for iOS devices.
It will be interesting to see if this marks a sea changes across the ecosystem. Will Apple eventually split iTunes into individual apps on iOS too?