iTunes has been a part of our lives for 18 wonderful and occasionally frustrating years, but it may not be for much longer, with rumours that Apple is planning to phase it out in the months to come and replace it with a suite of other apps.
Since its launch in 2001, iTunes has been the primary means for Apple users to listen to music, watch TV shows, download podcasts, manage their devices and create playlists to burn CDs for crushes – I mean, I definitely did a lot of that back in the day.
Per reports in Bloomberg, however, Apple will be using its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which kicks off on Monday in California, to announce a trio of separate apps for music, TV and podcasts.
Their report claims that, “without iTunes, customers [will be able to] manage their Apple gadgets through the Music app.” This remains unconfirmed, as the tech giant has not commented, and likely won’t before the beginning of the WWDC next week.
The conference is expected to be light on hardware, and there likely won’t be a new generation of iPhones or Apple Watches announced, but Bloomberg say that there is likely to be talk of expansion into “growth areas such as augmented reality and personal health-care management.”
While we don’t know for a fact that iTunes is on the way out, it seems fairly likely. If so, then goodbye old friend – I will miss your constant, unrelenting demands for me to update you, and I’ll think of you fondly every time I add another obscure b-side to my three-hour Britney Spears playlist.
