On a parky , rainy 24-hour interval in San Francisco years ago , Steve Jobs took the leg at the 2001 Macworld Expo to present young Apple product . After talking about boring technicalities of new ironware and software , Jobs switched registers . He introduced Apple ’s digital hub construct , then commence talking about a revolution .
“ There is a music revolution happening right now . ”
The ikon of the current version of iTunes , version 12 .
caper discourse the current United States Department of State of digital music : how hoi polloi ripped CDs , put euphony on computers , make playlist , and how people burned those playlists to candela to listen on the go or in the car . People even re-create digital medicine to MP3 players . job order that music player apps were “ too complex . They are really difficult to learn and use . ”
Jobs then introduce iTunes , arguably the most of import software Apple ever released , other than its operating system . iTunes set the melody for the companionship ’s next 10 and its ascent from a “ beleaguered ” computer hardware and software society to the industry leader we know today . accept that Apple was playing stop - up , Jobs said , “ We ’re former to this party and we ’re about to do a leapfrog . ”
And they for certain did .
iTunes over the years
iTunes has a story that parallels that of Apple since its passing in 2001.In less than a year later , Jobsintroduced the iPod , the hardware machine that , married to iTunes , would turn Apple ’s fortunes around .
As Apple acquaint new iPod good example , the companionship also added new features to iTunes . edition 2 was released to cooccur with the iPod ’s availability ; reading 3 added smart playlists and reinforcement for audiobooks from Audible.com . In April 2003 , iTunes 4 insert the iTunes Music Store , add living for the AAC codec , and more . Oh , and hell froze over later on that year : Apple discharge a Windows version of iTunes , “ plausibly the undecomposed Windows app ever written , ” said Jobs .
launch with a mere 200,000 songs , the iTunes Music Store sold one million songs in its first week . By June of that year , a million iPods had been sold , and the world was presently rocking to their personal soundtracks while wearing the theme song white earbuds .
Here ’s what the iTunes Music Store looked like in iTunes 4 .
iTunes and the iPod made tech cool . Those earbuds were everywhere . Just as earpiece marked the first portable euphony gyration when the Walkman soar in popularity in the early eighties , the ubiquitous white earbuds bear attestant to just how many people need to listen to music on the go and did so with Apple products .
In April 2004 , an incremental update , iTunes 4.5 , saw some novel features : the now - defunct iMix , the once utile party shuffle , and more . Through the life of iTunes 4 , other enhancements included AirTunes — the precursor of today ’s AirPlay — to stream music over a local net , musical accompaniment for photo , and reenforcement for television . In June 2005 , Apple added podcast support ; together with a huge podcast directory in a discussion section of the iTunes Music Store , it serve spearhead a revolution in that nascent media .
iTunes 5 and 6 , released from September 2005 through June 2006 , did n’t supply many new feature to the app , focus more on compatibility , bug mess , and minor sweetening . It did see the addition of video recording when the fifth generation iPod classic was released in October 2005 , but it was iTunes 7 , which lasted almost two years — September 2006 through September 2008 — that watch major new features . There were iPod game ( remember them ? ) , gapless playback was added ( finally ) , Cover Flow ( now retire ) , and living , in other 2007 , for the novel Apple TV .
Party Shuffle in iTunes 7 .
iTunes ’ patterned advance mirror that of digital media in worldwide . At first it was about music and nothing more ; the “ tunes ” in iTunes . But as digital engineering improve , and hardware grew new capabilities , iTunes shepherd dissimilar types of digital depicted object to portable devices . Photos , video , and later apps , all made the jump from the background to pocket - sized devices through iTunes . For year , Apple ’s new product presentation focused on the iPod and digital euphony , with the rest of the society ’s computer hardware being petty . The company lived and breathed iPod , as Apple ’s food market share crushed its challenger .
In February 2007 , Jobs compose an essay entitled view on Music ( curiously only available now onApple ’s Korean website ) , which would exchange the music diligence forever . In it , Jobs deplore the manipulation of DRM ( digital right direction ) on music downloads and offer alternatives . In May of that yr , the iTunes Store introduced iTunes Plus , which was 256 kbps DRM free music , sold at a slight exchange premium , allowing interoperability with other software and computer hardware . By then , the iTunes juggernaut was unstoppable and Apple could mold the style the music manufacture sold its products . Digital music sales shortly eschewed DRM entirely .
2007 was , of course , the yr of the first iPhone . Still linked to iTunes , this twist became the computer hardware tantamount of that media management app , turning Apple into the liberal tech company of all sentence . By then , iTunes patronize a full dividing line of portable gadget : the iPod classic , touch , nano , shuffle , and the iPhone . ( And it also synced to the Apple TV , then a arduous - saucer ground equipment . ) And it added the App Store , whosesuccess is lauded on a regular basis , and which has helped contribute to the popularity of the iPhone .
iTunes 8 and 9 prompt ahead , consolidating Apple ’s overall digital strategy . You could rent movies and TV shows , then buy movie and idiot box shows , you could download course from iTunes uracil , and bribe ebooks . iTunes added and refine more features : Genius Mixes and Home Sharing were add up , and Party Shuffle morphed into iTunes DJ ( since removed , and put back by the puzzling Up Next ) .
Cover Flow survey in iTunes 9 .
Introducing complexity
During the initial iTunes introduction , Jobs said of the music apps that live at the sentence : “ They are too complex . They are really difficult to learn and practice . ” iTunes was becoming a perplexing amalgam of features that no longer seemed constitutive and felt like they were cobble together indiscriminately . Apple summate such feature — later strike out — as the Genius sidebar and the iTunes MiniStore , which did n’t make it easier to happen and listen to music , but tried to funnel user into the iTunes Store to get them to corrupt euphony .
The epitome of this merchandising - led design was the fatal introduction , with iTunes 10 , of Ping , a “ social internet for music , ” whichprompted me to drop a line at the time , “ I ’m sure Apple has a plan , but so far , users seem to be greeting Ping with a big shrug . I hump I have . ” Pingdidn’t last long ; in October , 2010,it was replaced by the iTunes Sidebar , which , just as the Ping sidebar , was curtly - lived .
iTunes 10 and the short - lived Ping . This was also when Apple made the iTunes sidebar a sombre , uniform hoary .
In 2011 , iTunes Match come into existence , yet never spread beyond the US , Canada , and Australia . And in the following class , iTunes 11 added iTunes in the Cloud , for purchased message , and also made major changes in iTunes ’ interface , confuse users . iTunes Radio was introduced , and the two - twelvemonth life of this adaptation of iTunes see a lot of fixes and minor enchantments , but nothing that made the program well-heeled to use . When iTunes 12 saw the light in October 2014 , Apple again pulled the rug out from under users , changing pilotage within the app and making it even harder to find one ’s elbow room through a maze of features .
As we now know , the next step in digital music is streaming , and iTunes 12 embraced that in 2015 with Apple Music and the iCloud Music Library , whichis the scourge of people with carefully curated medicine libraries . And there ’s no escape the iTunes Store ; it ’s for good broil into every nook and cranny of the app .
iTunes initially came into world because of “ a euphony revolution ” maneuver by Steve Jobs , who , as we make love , loved euphony . Over the years , as digital substance get on , iTunes became the hub for all that content . That ’s not a tough thing in and of itself ; lots of people have sex to call iTunes “ bloated,”but I disagree . The problem now is that those who want to use iTunes for its original purpose , music , find themselves stuck in a slack of features plan to sell , sell , sell Cartesian product from the iTunes Store .
In my committal to writing about iTunes — notably my Ask the iTunes Guy column — I field questions from users perplexed by the quirks of this app . I used to get doubt ask how to do something more expeditiously , and I was able to aid citizenry unionize and manage their euphony creatively . Now , most of the questions I get are about render to work around things that are break , or how to find features that were once well accessible . More and more users long for a simple medicine musician that sheds much of the cruft that has build up over the years .
Apple ’s printing press discharge for iTunes 1.0 say :
“ iTunes is miles onward of every other jukebox program , and we hope its dramatically bare substance abuser interface will land even more multitude into the digital music revolution . ”
If only that were on-key now .
