The new MAC operating system from Apple, macOS Catalina is putting iTunes in the past.
Some people might be thinking: “How can iTunes be dead?” What happens to my music?”
Apple has now created three separate applications for music, podcasts and TV, allowing for a more organized operating system.
Many users may not have even realized the change because Apple Music is accessible from your iPhone. iTunes was used for downloading music from your computer onto your device and uploading as well.
The iTunes app on iPhones gave users access to purchase songs within the app and be saved to your music library. The cost of songs on iTunes would range from $.99 to $1.29, and the price of a full album was even more. This is what brought many Apple device users to download music illegally on their computers and save it to their music library.
Sure not everyone who did it was proud of it, but how else would anyone expect to get music for free? With music downloading services such as Napster and LimeWire, users were able to get the content they want without paying the price. Or so they thought.
Sites like Napster and LimeWire were peer-to-peer file-sharing systems, meaning anyone was able to get music from whomever provided it. Including those who would upload music for users to download that were made up of many viruses because downloading music from these sites was basically at the users own risk.
Back then we weren’t thinking about how illegally downloading music was going to affect our computers performance in the future. We were just concerned with getting the latest tunes for free.
Nowadays, people are willing to pay for good quality services to get what they want to hear. In 2016, MusicWatch, a music industry research firm, conducted research showing 26 million subscribers paid for music services.
Apple Music is $9.99 a month for users and $4.99 for college students. A flat fee a month lets users download an unlimited amount of music and not have to worry about an individual price for each song.
Among the many features Apple Music has to offer is the ability to share music, a weekly playlist made just for you and the application matching lyrics to a song in seconds
“Apple Music should have been created a lot sooner,” sophomore nutrition major Kathleen O’Connor said.
Now Apple device users have their podcasts, music, shows and movies in their own separate apps.
Apple Music does have some competition with other music streaming apps such as Spotify. Spotify has the same prices as Apple Music subscriptions but offers more. The Spotify premium student plan comes with Hulu and Showtime for $4.99 a month. By Spotify offering an incentive for students to receive streaming platforms and all the music they want, students would be more likely to purchase a Spotify account over an Apple Music account.
In 2019, 108 million people were subscribed to Spotify and 60 million people were subscribed to Apple Music, according to Statista.com.
Our generation is constantly using devices. Whether it be our phones, laptops, tablets or TVs, there’s always a way to watch or listen to whatever we want. With the help of a variety of streaming services, it’s never been easier to access our desired content as well.
There’s a continual growth of our devices as technology advances almost every day. Although with advancements, comes adjustments.
For any iPhone user, people can understand how bothersome the constant updates are.
“They should probably get it right the first time,” O’Connor said. “I feel like I always have a new update on my computer or phone.”
Updates may be essential to Apple devices and their performance, but O’Connor expressed that sometimes she goes without updating her devices because of how time consuming they can be.
Though iTunes may be dead, users should think of it as Apple revolutionizing their brand to be better prepared for the future.
Sometimes you may have to let go of old things to make room for the new.
