Go to the profile of Nati Shochat
Nati Shochat
Bilingually Microblogging about Tech & Apple • Product & UX @ Spiral Solutions, EiC @iPhonesIsrael & writing @InventorAdopt • Learning something new each day.

Breaking down iTunes

Apple’s “Digital Hub” strategy was introduced by Apple at the January 9th 2001 keynote, as the third golden age of the PC. This strategy looked at the PC and mostly at the Mac as the centrepiece of the digital lifestyle, by binding and enhancing digital devices as the DVD player, the digital camera, camcorders, cellphones, hand held organizers, and portable music players (CD’s and/or MP3's). Interestingly, although Apple unveiled iTunes at that keynote, the bigger focus was on iMovie and iDVD.

As discovered years later, the reason behind that logic was Apple’s impression that digital movie editing and distribution, could be the new desktop publishing gold mine that the company enjoyed in the 80'. however only nine months (and more than 6 million iTunes downloads) later, Apple changed its tune for the “Digital Hub” strategy, and from focusing on movies the company decided to focus on music. Since then Apple’s “Digital Hub” strategy became more focused on music with the iPod and iTunes in the front seats.

When it was first introduced, iTunes was quite simple. The software that has evolved from the SoundJam acquisition, was tasked with few actions that included, listening and managing music on a Mac, ripping new music from CD’s, and burning playlists on CD’s. In fact the software was introduced as a simpler, free music manager that came without the confusing UI and limitations that the competitors from Microsoft, Real Networks and others imposed as a mean to push the users into a paid upgrade. But soon after launch the app got into rapid update pace, which continued in the following years, as iTunes improved, changed and got more features. Among them:

  • Support for the various iPods, Apple TV’s, iPhones, iPads that Apple launched and introduced.
  • The iTunes media store (introduced in 2003) that started with the music store, but evolved into a full fledged media store that includes music and music videos, movies and TV shows.
  • Support to Windows and the gradual move from the PowerPC CPU’s to Intel CPU’s.
  • The AppStore (introduced in 2008).
  • Support for services like iTunes in the Cloud, iCloud and recently Apple Music.

As the app evolved and grew in function and features, so it became more cumbersome, buggy and slow. It has drifted further and further from being the great simple media manager that it once was. Interestingly the change that made most of the difference was the added support to the iPhone and later the AppStore. Ironically just before that change, Steve Jobs described the simple UI and superior UX when he said during his interview at the D5 conference:

“It’s like giving a glass of ice-water to someone in hell”

When asked by Walt Mossberg about the existence of iTunes on Windows.

But since then the UX of iTunes went south.

Although Apple chose to add more and more features into iTunes on the Mac and Windows, the company chose a different path in adding similar features into iOS. For example: the AppStore and iTunes Store apps are two separate apps, even though the iTunes Store was added to iOS prior to the launch of the AppStore (Which was not the case on iTunes). In addition, Apple stripped some functionalities from the Music app, such as Podcasts and Movies that got moved into separate dedicated apps.

So while iTunes has all those features bundled into it. iOS has six different apps to handle the same tasks: Music (that also includes the Apple Music streaming service), Podcasts, Video, iTunes U, the AppStore and the iTunes Store.

This contrast and the fact that iTunes has became so bloated, created a lot of criticism towards Apple in the recent years, calling the company to break down iTunes into several separate apps. And like any criticism on the web, there are plenty of suggestions on how to do that. But although it sounds like an obvious thing to do, it’s not an easy task. iTunes and the AppStore are the main drivers of Apple’s services that sees a tremendous growth in recent quarters, with more than 800 million accounts with credit cards, that make daily transactions. From buying movies, to purchasing apps.

That’s why the task is very delicate, and takes Apple some time, as I believe that the company realizes that it’s time to break down that behemoth.

In my opinion Apple should break down iTunes into two applications:

  • Appstore and device management.
  • iTunes and Apple Music.

At the begging, iTunes was a cardinal component in activating, syncing and managing iOS devices. But since iOS 5 and its “Cord cutting” feature, it has become easier and more common to manage the iOS devices straight from the devices themselves, whether it’s downloading apps, syncing data between devices through cloud services, backing up crucial data and updating the device firmware. Still there are lots of users that manage their iOS devices through iTunes, on a regular base or just when they need to restore the device.

Downloading and syncing apps is an important and part which can not be separated from the device management. So the AppStore should be integrated into the device management app.

Media is a separate use case and it brings iTunes back to its roots, as a simple media manager that it once was. Personally I like the idea that Apple Music is integrated into the music/media manager, but that said, Apple needs to make the distinguish clearer and less annoying to the users that don’t want to subscribe to the streaming service.

With this suggested split, it seems that the ability to sync media into the iOS devices is lost. Well not at all. First, iCloud is the missing link and it has been since Apple introduced it at 2011. All of the songs, albums, movies and apps that is bought is stored in a cloud locker, from which the user can download at any given time for free and as many times as he wants to.

Secondly, the device manager can know where is the media library/folder on the Mac or PC and create a connection to it, enabling the user to sync and transfer music, videos and other media files to iPods, iPhones and iPads. In a similar way that the Apple Watch companion app on the iPhone, knows where to find the media (songs and photos) and sync them to the Watch.

Breaking down iTunes is just a matter of time, and after so many years and features, it’s really a good time to bring back the simplicity and ease of use to that once great piece of software.