One of the big announcements from Apple made during its WWDC 2019 keynote yesterday is that iTunes will soon go away on Macs. Later this Fall, the next version of macOS called Catalina will introduce new Music, Podcasts and TV apps for macOS users. Apple now thinks that having dedicated apps on the desktop is better than an all-in-one app like iTunes, but for now this change will only affect Mac users.
Indeed, iTunes for Windows is here to stay, for now at least. Apple didn’t mention what would happen to the Windows app during yesterday’s keynote, but the company did inform the press later on that iTunes on Windows would continue to function, without specifying if the app would continue to get new features. Here’s what Ars Technica reported yesterday:
Apple says users of iTunes under Microsoft Windows will not see any changes. It won’t be broken up into several apps; it will work just like it does now. However, Apple did not provide any clarification about what support will be like for future features. The company simply says that Windows users will continue to have the same experience as before and that it is not announcing any plans to end support for iTunes in Windows.
Because Apple has yet to launch web apps for the iTunes Store and Apple Music, iTunes remains a very important piece of software on Windows. Apple mentioned yesterday that there are now 100 million active Mac users worldwide, which is a drop in the water compared to the 1.5 billion Windows PCs out there. Most iTunes users are probably on Windows, where the app also provides access to podcasts, audiobooks, movies and TV shows. The app also launched on the Windows 10 Microsoft Store last year, where it remains one of the top free apps along with Spotify and Netflix.
