iTunes is a mess and too cluttered and maybe the driving force for iTunes every-year lower market share. I've thought of a safe way Apple could breakup iTunes without giving up the legendary iconic name. The iTunes Store contains music, movies, tv shows, and podcasts. Which iOS already has seperates apps for called obviously Music, Videos, and Podcasts. What if Apple got rid of the separate iTunes Store app and just put a "Store" button in the Music, Videos apps like how it is in iBooks and Podcasts. This will also will work well with OS X, they will just have to write a Music, Video, and Podcast apps. So basically the quad of apps on OS X and iOS is Music, Videos, and Podcasts each with their own "Store" button in the apps and when pressed it will open the iTunes Store right in app and just show the same format of content that the app you're in (ex. Music.app - Music Store only, Videos.app - TV shows and Movies Store only.) This would less clutter your buying experience, so if a person just buys music on iTunes, they won't have to see Movies, etc ever, (Unless they open that app). This would also make less experienced users understand where to go better for what they want. As I said earlier, Apple could do this safely by grouping them together and call it iTunes. "Hey where did you get that song?" "I got it on iTunes." meaning iTunes as a whole but technically got it from the Music app. Doesn't this sound familiar? Its just like iLife and iWork. iLife and iWork are names of the apps grouped together in one package.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
General How Apple could disband iTunes safely and
- Thread starter TrenttonY
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
What's confusing about making purchases in iTunes? Each media format has its own tab in both iOS and OS X. Keeping the iTunes app on iOS makes sense, at least to me, because that's where you but music and movies much like how the App Store is where you buy apps. The Music and Movies apps are for playing media. In my use they don't really need links to their respective iTunes stores.
iTunes on my Mac is for making purchases and managing my iDevices. I sync my music after its been organized into playlists and choose which movies to sync and well as making an occasional backup. I also sync my iPod Classic which has no other means of doing so. I also listen to music and watch movies in iTunes. I know Front Row exists (or at least it did back in the Snow Leopard days), but I'm not sure many newer users would know or care about it. QuickTime is also there, but I'm not sure it has any way to create a library. I also have VLC for weird file formats. As for podcasts, I'm not even sure why they have their own app on iOS, but I haven't listened to any podcasts in years.
If Apple breaks up the iTunes Store, there still needs to be an app on OS X for device management. iCloud just isn't ready to fully handle that (and American data plans frankly aren't big enough). Not to mention legacy devices like iPods that have no internet access. There would need to be one app that could pull all of the different libraries together to make the syncing process easy, and iTunes already does that.
iTunes on my Mac is for making purchases and managing my iDevices. I sync my music after its been organized into playlists and choose which movies to sync and well as making an occasional backup. I also sync my iPod Classic which has no other means of doing so. I also listen to music and watch movies in iTunes. I know Front Row exists (or at least it did back in the Snow Leopard days), but I'm not sure many newer users would know or care about it. QuickTime is also there, but I'm not sure it has any way to create a library. I also have VLC for weird file formats. As for podcasts, I'm not even sure why they have their own app on iOS, but I haven't listened to any podcasts in years.
If Apple breaks up the iTunes Store, there still needs to be an app on OS X for device management. iCloud just isn't ready to fully handle that (and American data plans frankly aren't big enough). Not to mention legacy devices like iPods that have no internet access. There would need to be one app that could pull all of the different libraries together to make the syncing process easy, and iTunes already does that.
I would also like to add, if iTunes was disbanded, and put into the separate apps, each store for each app could have 4 more buttons at the bottom for just that formant of store.They could then add new features to the store.
(Ex. Music store in Music app and obviously Movies, TVshows, etc not in that store, they could add 4 more buttons next to "Music".
Seems more confusing having 4 seperate apps than 1. iTunes for many is becoming irrelevant because we don't need to connect our mobile devices to manage anymore. Some of my friends have never touched iTunes thanks to iCloud backup, iTunes in the Cloud and spotify music.
iTunes is great for what it does, I can't see apple splitting it up. I have iTunes match and while the service is far from perfect it makes my reliance on iTunes all the less.
You're suggesting an idea, not reporting a bug. Apple has to be careful because if they used your idea they want to be legally protected from a lawsuit.
Also I get the feeling that they didn't care for your suggestion anyway
bugtreport.apple.com isn't just for bugs. I have also sent it to both just in case.
Last edited: