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macOS 10.15 Expected to Feature Standalone Music and Podcasts Apps and Redesigned Books App

Wednesday April 10, 2019 7:07 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The next major release of macOS will feature standalone Music and Podcasts apps alongside Apple's promised TV app coming to the Mac this fall, according to 9to5Mac's Guilherme Rambo, who has discovered icons for the apps. Rambo says he has confirmed the plans with sources familiar with the matter.

Image via 9to5Mac

The report also claims that the existing Books app on Mac will be redesigned to look more like the Apple News app on Mac.

Like the ‌Apple News‌, Home, Stocks, and Voice Memos apps on macOS Mojave, Rambo says the new Music, Podcasts, and TV apps will be built with Apple's so-called Marzipan developer tools, which allow for a single app to be designed to run across iPhone, iPad, and Mac with a similar codebase.

Despite the standalone Music and Podcasts apps, Rambo says iTunes will stick around on the next major macOS release, as it is still used for some legacy purposes like manual syncing of older iPhones, iPads, and iPods.

Apple's plans to bring UIKit-based Music, Podcasts, and possibly Books apps to the Mac were first hinted at by developer Steve Troughton-Smith on Twitter last week. Apple should unveil macOS 10.15 alongside iOS 13, watchOS 6, and tvOS 13 at WWDC 2019, which kicks off on June 3 in San Jose.


Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 13, macOS Catalina
Tag: Podcasts
Buyer's Guide: Apple TV (Don't Buy)
[ 151 comments ]

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PJivan
7 months ago

I remember the days when Mac OS updates were interesting. We talked about things like multitasking, 64-bit, Quartz Extreme, Fast User Switching, Expose, other GUI changes etc.
Now the big features are mainly service related...


Like new file system, 32 bit deprecation, SIP and Gatekeeper, external gpu, Core ML, caching server, metal, marzipan are not deep and interesting change... maybe you don't like IT like you used to.
Rating: 23 Votes
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TMRJIJ
7 months ago
As long as it is fully functional. The current Marzipan apps seemed quite lazy and just simple ports of the iOS counterpart with no added desktop features.
Rating: 20 Votes
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Mikey44
7 months ago
I have a feeling that the music app will only be Apple Music, rather than allowing you to maintain your own library, which is what iTunes is supposed to do... I'd love to be proved wrong, but based on how Apple has been moving... they are trying to push services so much recently.

Each of these can earn them some money, where as a dedicated library doesn't earn them as much money.
Rating: 19 Votes
Avatar
dombi
7 months ago
I remember the days when Mac OS updates were interesting. We talked about things like multitasking, 64-bit, Quartz Extreme, Fast User Switching, Expose, other GUI changes etc.
Now the big features are mainly service related...
Rating: 19 Votes
Avatar
chucker23n1
7 months ago

I remember the days when Mac OS updates were interesting. We talked about things like multitasking,


APFS

64-bit,


Swift

Quartz Extreme


Metal

Fast User Switching


Desktop Stacks

, Expose,


Continuity (Auto Unlock, Universal Clipboard, Handoff, Personal Hotspot, text message sync, AirDrop)

other GUI changes


Dark Mode

Siri, Purgeable Storage, Tabs, Night Shift, Notification Center.

Heck, Continuity alone is awesome. It took several releases to work reliably for me, but when it does, it's really awesome.

Keep in mind that early Mac OS X releases added many features in part because, well, they kind of lacked them. It wasn't until around 10.3 or 10.4 that all the essential features were there.
Rating: 19 Votes
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jagolden
7 months ago
Nothing bloated about iTunes. It’s quite simple, one-stop for buying/loading/ripping music and audio files. The term “bloated” seems to be thrown around a lot without any understanding or support to back it up.
It’s certainly not confusing to use, and unless your computer is under powered, it’s certainly not slow.

Unlike so many it seems, I’m quite capable on manually managing my files, don’t need someone else to do it for me.
Don’t need auto-sync or sync over wi-fi.
Having tens of thousands of music and audio files both in and out of iTunes, managing the files I want at any given time using iTunes is ideal.
I don’t even keep thousands of files in iTunes, simply dragging them onto my phone or iPods when desired. Why would I want to give this up?
Rating: 16 Votes
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SoN1NjA
7 months ago
With the rise of podcasts it's a good idea to have it's own app. Also I'm very glad Music on macOS will (finally) have it's own app! Bye iTunes...
Rating: 14 Votes
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Traverse
7 months ago
As long as they leave a way for me to manage and sync my local libraries and have access to my downloaded content.

Don’t take away smart playlists, still let me access my music and video files in the Finder for copying and backing up, and allow me to sync to offline devices and I’m indifferent.
Rating: 11 Votes
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DaveP
7 months ago
iTunes has sort of become a bloated, complicated mess. Very interested to see what they come up with.
Rating: 10 Votes
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Mr. 123
7 months ago

Assuming this doesn't ruin my existing music library with iTunes Match, I am very excited for this.

I am a iTunes Match user and I have a lot of music that isn’t on iTunes Store including my own music. If they keep the functions that allow you to tag your music and make smart playlists etc I’m on board with splitting iTunes but if they just replace iTunes (which is IMO the best music management app on macOS) with the iOS music app, I will be really disappointed in Apple. There are people who don’t like streaming 256k music and who have a personal collection.
Rating: 9 Votes

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