14 DAY TRIAL // We’ve known for a while that Apple was planning to retire iTunes, but all we got were a bunch of rumors that the Cupertino-based tech giant never confirmed.
And now that a final announcement is expected this week, we’re seeing some moves on Apple’s side too, as the company has started the transition to the standalone apps that would replace iTunes.
As we told you before, Apple wants to break iTunes into pieces, so some of its features would be migrated to dedicated Movies, Podcasts, and TV apps.
By the looks of things, the transition from iTunes to these apps is already under way, with MacRumors noting that Apple removed the content from the Facebook account of iTunes and moving posts to the Apple TV page on the same social network.
A similar migration is happening on Instagram as well, as the iTunes profile is being transferred to the Apple TV page.
Updated links
There are also changes to links that point to iTunes getting the ax as well. For example, itunes.apple.com links for songs and artists are being transferred to music.apple.com. Similar updates happen for apps, podcasts, TV shows, and books, and Apple apparently uses dedicated domains for all of these, like books.apple.com, podcasts.apple.com, and tv.apple.com.
Parts of iTunes will be moved to these apps, and it’s expected that the service would first be retired from macOS before going dark on other platforms too.
For the time being, however, Apple remains completely tight-lipped on everything it plans on the iTunes front, albeit a confirmation of all these changes is expected to be offered this week at WWDC.
The goal appears to be rather simple: with the services unit becoming a major cash cow for the company, breaking iTunes in standalone apps that could help boost revenue here is something that must be done.