Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2019) has been unusually busy this year, with an impressive range of new products and technologies on display. However, a landmark announcement was the announcement of the end of the iTunes app iTunes. In truth, this decision was probably long overdue. Long criticized for its "blown features" that have seen Apple add heavy new features year after year, iTunes will be split into three separate apps when the next version of macOS, called Catalina, arrives later this year. Music goes to Apple Music, while podcasts and video go to Apple Podcasts and Apple TV respectively. But there's no doubt that iTunes, since its launch in 2001, has been a key player in the digital music industry launching the first online music store, as well as podcasting, movie rentals, and even ultra-high 4K video. definition. So here's our personal playlist of the biggest moments in iTunes history.
Steve Jobs launched iTunes in 2001 (Image credit: Apple)
1. iTunes is coming (2001)
Apple has been credited with revolutionizing the music industry with iTunes, but when Steve Jobs entered the scene in January 2001, he admitted that "there's a revolution in music, and we're late for the holidays. Other companies had already started developing apps and software for listening to music on personal computers, including a little-known software publisher called Casady & Greene, with its popular SoundJam app. Apple smartly bought SoundJam from the company in 1999, and two years later, it morphed into iTunes 1.0 and changed the music industry forever.
2) The iTunes Store (2003)
Early versions of iTunes focused primarily on copying music from CDs people already had and then reading it from a computer or iPod. Then, in 2002, Apple launched the iTunes Store, which allowed Internet users to buy albums and individual songs legitimately online for the first time, rather than pirate them for free on Napster. Equally important, Apple has also released a version of iTunes for Windows for the first time. Apple's Mac computers have been vastly outnumbered by Windows PCs, as is always the case, so it was a critical strategic move for Apple, opening up the iPod and the iTunes Store to a new audience (and paving the way for the arrival of the iPhone a few years later).
3. Podcasts are here (2004)
One of iTunes' most overlooked achievements is its early role in promoting podcasts. Apple added a podcast section to iTunes in 2004, giving a boost to this new way of streaming and contributing to the worldwide success of podcasts like Lime Street and Serial. Spotify, on the other hand, only recently started spending money to buy podcast producers to increase their subscriptions.
4) The iPhone is coming (2007)
In 2006, the iTunes Store peaked with 2007 billion song sales and the success of the iPod. This paved the way for Apple's biggest success: the world-conquering iPhone, launched in 2007. The success of the iPhone has also had a ripple effect on iTunes. With millions of people now listening to music on their new smartphone, music download sales have skyrocketed and in XNUMX, the iTunes Store emerged as the world's largest music seller. USA. Apple closed out the year by finally inducing Led Zeppelin to put their music on iTunes as well.
5) Steve who? (2010)
The Beatles lasted a bit longer, but the Fab Four finally hit iTunes in 2010, around the same time it hit a record 10 billion downloads, making it the world's largest music store. world. The historic sale was won by Johnny Cash, with his song "I Guess Things Are Going Well." The buyer in Georgia was Louie Sulcer, 71, who received a phone call and a €10,000 iTunes gift card from Steve Jobs himself. Mr. Sulcer's response? "Yeah, okay, go, who's that?"
6) Table tennis (2010)
However, it is not only after the success for iTunes. With Apple adding more and more features every year, the app has been increasingly criticized for being cumbersome and clunky to use. But iTunes' first big bug was Ping, introduced in iTunes version 10 in 2010. Ping was an attempt to keep up with the advent of more music-oriented social media platforms like FaceBook and Myspace, allowing fans of music share your favorite songs Follow the news of your favorite artists. Its launch was highly publicized, promoted by Lady Gaga and ColdPlay, but Ping quickly found himself plagued by spam and trolls using fake accounts. It was already dead since iTunes 11 arrived in 2012.
7) Follow the current one (2012).
However, the Ping mishap did not affect sales, and in 2011, the iTunes Store hit a record 15 billion downloads. But the next version of iTunes, version 11, in 2012, flagged another bug. With more and more features breaking the app's interface, it was ironic enough that a backstage legal battle forced the removal of one of its most popular features. Cover Flow was a great option for "flipping through" album art on a computer or smartphone screen, but it was removed in iTunes 11, drawing a lot of criticism. .
8) And you, U2? (2014)
One of the biggest disasters in iTunes history has nothing to do with its huge list of features or heavy interface. In 2014, Apple hosted a huge launch event for the new iPhone 6 and asked U2 to play a song from their new album, Songs Of Innocence. "It wasn't the most amazing single you've ever heard," said Apple's Tim Cook. "We'd like a full album of that." Apple has given a free copy of the album to all 500 million iTunes users whether they want it or not. The new album was automatically downloaded to his device without asking the user for permission, prompting a worldwide critical reaction and "angry, embarrassing, a little embarrassing" from modest Bono.
Image Credit: Apple / Beats
9) Apple meets Beats (2015)
Steve Jobs admitted that Apple had been slow to work with iTunes, but Jobs had also resisted the new era of music streaming a decade later. While Spotify was signing up millions of monthly subscribers, iTunes was sticking to its guns and focusing on selling music downloads, rather than offering subscription-based streaming. But in 2014, Apple bought the Beats Music service from rapper Dr. Dre and music producer Jimmy Iovine, who quickly relaunched it under the Apple Music name in 2015. "I've always known in my heart that Beats belonged to Apple," he said. Iovine (although the €3 billion check Apple coughed up for Beats Music and the Beats headphone brand might have something to do with it).