Oliver Haslam on April 11, 2019, 5:24 am

macOS 10.15 To Split iTunes Into Individual Music, Podcasts, Books Apps

Ever since Apple announced that the TV app is coming to the Mac later this year, the assumption has been that Project Marzipan was once again being used to take an iOS app and port it to the Mac.

That, it was hoped, meant that we might finally see the breakup of iTunes and developer Steve Troughton-Smith suggested he had found evidence that meant we would see new Music, Podcasts, and Books apps alongside TV when macOS 10.15 ships later in the year. Now, 9to5Mac’s Guilherme Rambo has chimed in, and it’s good news.

Rambo has been able to create a reputation as someone who is excellent at finding tidbits in existing beta code that points to new features and products, and he says that he has been able to independently confirm that Troughton-Smith’s confidence is not unfounded. He too believes that Music, Podcasts, TV, and Books will see new apps in macOS 10.15, with the latter looking similar to the new Mac-based News app.

Rambo also confirms that Marzipan is being used to make all of this happen and again suggests that all of this points to the death of iTunes as we know it. The app has become hugely bloated over the years, and if some of these apps are indeed arriving, then iTunes as we know it needs no longer exist.

The new Music, Podcasts, and TV apps will be made using Marzipan, Apple’s new technology designed to facilitate the porting of iPad apps to the Mac without too many code changes.

We’ll get some more concrete information on what these apps will look like and what it all means for iTunes as we get ever closer to WWDC in June, when betas of macOS 10.15 will become available. Until then, we’ll have to rely on the work people like Rambo and Troughton-Smith are doing. Long may it continue, too.

(Source: 9to5Mac)