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2001 - 2019
iTunes for Mac
“Sync in progress. Do not disconnect.”
- Birth year
- 2001
- Shutdown year
- 2019
- Lifespan
- 18 years
- Peak era
- 2003-2010
- Company
- Apple
- Category
- Software
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What Was It?
iTunes began in 2001 as a tidy way to rip CDs and organise a music library on the Mac. Within a few years it had become the centre of an entire digital life: the place where songs were bought, iPods were filled, podcasts were subscribed to, and backups quietly happened every time a cable was plugged in.
The iTunes Store opened in 2003 and sold songs individually, and a Windows version the same year made iTunes the default companion for every iPod. Over time it absorbed films, TV shows, podcasts, books and apps, and the once-simple music player became famous for doing a little too much.
In 2019, macOS Catalina split iTunes into separate Music, Podcasts and TV apps, with device syncing moved into Finder. The name lived on for a while on Windows, but the Mac app that defined a decade of music was gone.
Things You Probably Forgot
- Dragging songs onto the iPod icon and watching the progress bar
- Cover Flow, flicking through album art like records
- Burning a playlist to CD for the car
- The visualiser
- The sinking feeling of a sync about to erase your iPod
- The U2 album that appeared in everyone's library in 2014
The Story
- 2001 Steve Jobs introduced iTunes as Apple's digital music jukebox for the Mac.
- 2003 The iTunes Music Store opened and iTunes arrived on Windows.
- 2005 Podcasts and video were added to the app and store.
- 2006 iTunes 7 introduced Cover Flow.
- 2011 iOS 5 let iPhones and iPads set up and sync without a computer.
- 2019 macOS Catalina replaced iTunes with Music, Podcasts and TV.
How It Died
Apple replaced iTunes on the Mac with separate Music, Podcasts and TV apps in macOS Catalina in October 2019, moving iPhone and iPod syncing into Finder.
What Replaced It?
Memories
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