Apple is set to discontinue iTunes. Image/Telegraph Media Group
Apple is set to discontinue iTunes. Image/Telegraph Media Group
The start of the "digital music revolution", according to late Apple founder Steve Jobs, began in 2001.
Back then the music industry was in freefall, with millions of people downloading songs illegally from file sharing sites, such as Napster. In the US alone, 320 million blank CDs were sold in one year as people ripped and burned their music onto hard disks.
Jobs wasn't about to let Apple miss out on the trend. Almost two decades ago at Macworld, he revealed Apple's version of so-called jukebox software, named iTunes, designed to organise music libraries.
"iTunes is miles ahead of every other jukebox application, and we hope its dramatically simpler user interface will bring even more people into the digital music revolution," Jobs said at the time.
The launch of iTunes came at just the right moment for Apple. A few months after iTunes the company unveiled the first iPod - or the device that put "1,000 songs in your pocket". Two years later the iTunes Store followed, meaning users could now download songs directly from Apple.
After hitting record revenues of $28bn in 1999, the record industry was on the verge of a historic slump. "It was the peak of its hubris, but the bottom fell out of the industry. Apple became the one company trying to combat file sharing," says Danny Champion, a lecturer and music licensing consultant at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute.
The record industry could not escape digital music's rise - and Apple was there to step in to become the bulwark against piracy.
Digital music proved a huge success for Apple and a way to stem the sudden decline the music industry was suffering as piracy ran rampant, even if the music industry itself struggled to recover. iTunes gave users a way to easily download and search, paying a few pounds for a whole album, later adding films downloads, TV shows and podcasts.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the iPod Nano in 2005. Photo/Getty Images
"The launch of iTunes at the time where you could simply download any music was revolutionary," says Gregor Pryor, head of technology at the law firm Reed Smith and an expert on music licensing.
Music downloads exploded. The iPod, sold more than 100 million units by 2007, making it the world's biggest selling digital music product. By 2014, iTunes had more than 800 million user accounts as it grew from not only the main way to manage music but a sprawling central hub for iPhone users to register and manage their devices.
Life after iTunes
Apple has officially broken up iTunes to make way for three new apps - Podcasts, TV and Music.
With the launch of macOS Catalina, Mac devices will come with separate apps for consuming podcasts, streaming music and playing videos.
Apple is effectively "replacing" iTunes with the three separate apps, the firm said.
The new apps have "all the features you'd expect from iTunes, all while being blazingly fast."
The Music, Podcasts and TV apps feature a streamlined design, with fewer tabs and a cleaner user interface.
With the Music app, users have access to over 50 million songs, playlists and music videos.
"And users will have access to their entire music library, whether they downloaded the songs, purchased them or ripped them from a CD," Apple said.
"For those who like to own their music, the iTunes Music Store is just a click away."
The Apple TV app for Mac packs many of the same features users would expect, like TV channels, personalized recommendations and more than 100,000 iTunes movies and shows.
Macs also have access to the Podcasts app, with more than 700,000 shows to choose from, curated content and more.
As the new trio of apps is replacing iTunes, many have been reflecting on the media software's legacy at Apple.
End of the revolution
While Apple may have rode the wave of the digital music revolution, the download era that once supported its growth is now coming to an end. Apple last night announced that it would no longer offer its iTunes app at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose.
The iTunes Store, where consumers can buy digital songs to keep, will continue to exist, but be less prevalent, and it is clear the era of music downloads is winding down.
"There is no doubt that the massive exposition in streaming renders music downloads obsolete," says Pryor.
iTunes will be replaced by a trio of new products: a revamped Music app, a new TV app and a Podcasts app. Users will still have their music collections, but it is clear the focus of Apple's efforts are on the streaming customer.
Downloading music has slowly been eclipsed a new kind of music ownership - digital streaming. In effect, downloads gave consumers a taste of removing physical ownership of records - now, they would give that ownership up entirely.
The death of iTunes, once ubiquitous for digital music, could even be seen as somewhat overdue. Streaming cut the era of music downloads short. By 2018, download sales had dropped 58pc from their 2014 peak and were now selling even worse than physical music sales. Greg Harwood, a director at consultancy Simon-Kulcher, notes: "iTunes has become out-dated and less relevant, especially the use of downloads which has become old-fashioned."
But despite iTunes only now being deprecated, it would be a mistake to believe Apple is not well tuned for this digital streaming age.
When Apple launched its Apple Music service in 2015 it appeared to be some way behind the competition.
Spotify, the Swedish music streaming company, was already ingrained in consumer memories and had been running since 2008 in its current form, giving users access to 40 million songs for a flat monthly fee.
Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple, stands by a projection of an iPod as talks about iTunes in 2004. Photo/Getty Images
But its launch has arguably proved the greatest software success Apple has seen of the Tim Cook era. The new music service took Spotify head on - with Apple having immediate access to billions of iPhone users to push their service towards with discounted rates and sweetener introductory deals (users of Apple Music still get three months for free when they upgrade their iPhone).
Apple Music has since soared to 56 million paying users. While Spotify still dominates with more than 100 million paying users, Apple is playing catch-up with a slightly faster growth rate.
It comes as Apple moves its business aggressively towards so-called "Services" - trying to grow products like music and video streaming that rely on paid for memberships. A revamped music product seems like the obvious choice.
"Apple is trying to be a multiplatform IP company, closing iTunes and splitting it into different apps," Champion says.
Oddly enough, the end of the download era has also seen a revival in more vintage music sales, as hipster listeners take to vinyl in their droves. Sales of vinyl hit a 25 year high last year.
Yet while physical sales decline may be tempered by a vinyl renaissance, technology giants remain ever more wed to streaming. In fact, the potentially lucrative market is leading to ever more investment from Apple and Spotify, even descending into legal wranglings over the cut Apple takes from Spotify for paid memberships on its App Store.
While the music industry has returned to growth on the back of streaming, the music industry has never returned to the numbers it enjoyed at the height of its power; and now more of that income than ever is returning to technology companies, rather than labels or artists, Champion notes.
"It's all a big race for subscriptions," Champion says, "but it still doesn't answer the question that the value that has gone out of music."
It may not be the music revolution some had dreamed of. But for Apple, digital music is likely to continue to play on.
