Apple has announced the discontinuation of its music purchasing program iTunes. The announcement was made today at the company’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference in San Jose, California.
In lieu of Apple’s iconic music marketplace, the tech giant will break the program up into three distinct apps: Music, TV and Podcasts. Many of the changes Apple announced in updates to its next-generation mobile software iOS 13 are designed to decrease the company’s dependence on sales of its bedrock product, the iPhone.
Sales of its smartphone handsets have fallen sharply for the last several months. The company is also wanting to diversify its portfolio in case recent trade tensions between the U.S. and China rise.
iPhones and iPads have already seen iTunes phased out from their platforms. The same will now happen on Mac desktop and laptop computers. Consumers’ previous purchases through iTunes will be maintained in each new app on Mac computers according to the company.
Apple will be expanding its music streaming service to include video games and will also introduce a video-streaming service akin to Hulu and Netflix, likely to debut this fall. The company will also be expanding its smartwatch app store as well as augmented reality aps, which project technology (sounds, images or text) onto the real world.
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