Apple could be working towards the release of a new app for Windows 10, according to a report this week from an Italian website.
The blog Aggiornamenti Lumia suggests that an app from Apple is "coming soon" to the Microsoft Store, but stops short of providing additional details.
Apple still maintains a Windows version of the iTunes app, which has been discontinued on Mac and replaced by several standalone apps that split Apple's streaming services and content libraries into more manageable portals: Music, TV, Books, and Podcasts.
iTunes is currently the only native way to access Apple Music on Windows, and there is no Apple TV+ app. PC users wanting to stream Apple TV+ content must do so via Apple's website, so the natural assumption is that the rumored new Apple app could include a native portal for Apple TV+ and Apple Music.
Last year, a LinkedIn job listing revealed that Apple was looking to hire engineers with Universal Windows Platform (UWP) experience to work on the "next generation" of media apps for Windows.
UWP apps can run on Windows PCs, Xbox One, and HoloLens, and could conceivably give Apple additional avenues to push its streaming services.
A new @Apple app coming soon to the Microsoft Store? 👀 — Aggiornamenti Lumia (@ALumia_Italia) July 11, 2020
That being said, Aggiornamenti Lumia has no track record of predicting Apple product launches, and doesn't cite any sources to back up its claim, which was reported by 9to5Mac earlier today.
Top Rated Comments
Messages is a patch on the quilt of the iOS experience that keeps people buying Apple hardware, anything they cannot monetize (iTunes, Apple Music, AppleTV) goes to improving the experience in the products that are their main business focus — their hardware.
Rolling out Messages for Windows and Android would seem to me to make a lot of sense, although I very much doubt it'll happen in the short term.