Will Listeners Lose All Their Music After iTunes Shuts Down?
Apple has officially announced plans to end iTunes after 18 years, which has fans wondering if they'll lose all of their music once it shuts down.
During a WWDC conference on Monday (June 3), the tech giant revealed its decision to phase out the iconic application after the company introduces the next version of macOS (10.15), called Catalina, in September. Though it truly seems like the end of an era, Apple will replace iTunes with three different apps: Apple Podcasts, Apple TV, and Apple Music, which promises to have "all the powerful music features you expect from iTunes."
So does this mean we'll lose all our music after iTunes shuts down?
Nope! According to a press release issued after the live announcement, "users will have access to their entire music library, whether they downloaded the songs, purchased them, or ripped them from a CD."
"For those who like to own their music, the iTunes Music Store is just a click away," they added.
As Pitchfork reports, it'll be easy for users to keep their downloaded music—including MP3s—since all they have to do is drag their old songs to their Apple device in the Finder app.
We can all breathe a little sigh of relief knowing our iTunes collections will not disappear. However, it's still bittersweet knowing that after all these years, the app we grew up using will no longer exist. iTunes was first launched in 2001 under the late CEO Steve Jobs and at the time many referred to it as a "revolutionary online music store."