At WWDC 2019, while Apple announced the new desktop system macOS Catalina, it also announced that iTunes will be split into three applications:music, podcastsandvideoso far this media player software released in 2001 began to gradually withdraw from the stage of history.
As the music market shifts from purely digital music purchases to streaming music subscription services, the overly bloated features of iTunes have also hampered the development of Apple’s streaming services to a certain extent.
In macOS, the function of managing iOS/iPadOS devices in iTunes is handed over to the macOS Finder. The podcast part was split into a separate podcast app, audiobooks were merged with Apple Books, and the video part was split into a separate video app.
The most critical music part is replaced by a dedicated music application. Of course, Apple still retains the traditional digital content purchase part (iTunes Store), but it needs to enter these spin-off applications to make purchases.
The benefits of splitting are actually obvious. On the one hand, the streaming media business can be developed separately, such as support for lossless streaming media and spatial audio in Apple Music, which is completely unimaginable in the iTunes era; Compared with Atmos, Dolby Vision and other new technologies.
Looking at it today three years later, this split has laid a solid foundation for the development of Apple’s streaming media service.
But on Windows, due to various reasons, iTunes is still the only choice for iOS/iPad OS users and even users of Apple’s various streaming media services. For Apple Music users, there is not even a dedicated official Windows client, either continue to use the ancient software iTunes in the “digital music store era” to listen to streaming music, or use a third-party client-in fact, these first The third-party software is often a shell of the Apple Music web version, which is still far behind the native client application in terms of experience.
In October 2022, Microsoft officially announced that official Apple clients such as Apple Music and Apple TV will log into the Microsoft Store. On January 12, 2023, Apple will put Apple Music and Apple TV on the Microsoft Store, and the “retirement” of the Windows version of iTunes will officially enter the countdown.
安裝 Apple Music / Apple TV / Apple Device for Windows 11
Although Apple Music / Apple TV / Apple Device are already on the Microsoft Store, Apple also stated that the independent apps currently on the shelves are all “preview versions”. The stability of iTunes has been tempered for decades.
If you have requirements for software stability, it is best not to try it lightly; and after installing the above three applications, you will no longer be able to start iTunes-if you want to continue using iTunes, you need to completely delete the above three applications.
In addition, Apple did not fully put these three apps on the Microsoft Store in the whole region, but only on the Microsoft Store in the US region, so we need to open “Settings” in Windows 11, select “Time and Language” – “Language and Region”, select “United States” in “Country or Region”, and then you can download it smoothly on the Microsoft Store. And at this stage only supports Windows 11, not Windows 10.
Apple Music for Windows 11 experience: close to “perfect body”
Thanks to the modern system UI design provided by WinUI 3, the interface of Apple Music for Windows 11 fits very well with the system interface of Windows 11, and the design even caters to Microsoft’s own Fluent Design design system, which made me think it was Microsoft’s official self Hands-on design.
In fact, from the interface alone, there is not much difference between Apple Music for Windows 11 and the music on macOS. If you have used music on macOS, it should be extremely easy to get started.
Compared with the original menu bar on iTunes, the Windows version of Apple Music puts the menu entry in “···” in the upper left corner, and then clicks on “Setting” to set Apple Music. In fact, the setting The project is not much different from the music on macOS, divided into “General”, “Playback”, “Limited”, “File” and “Advanced”.
Among them, in “General”, you can enable whether to synchronize the media cabinet, whether to enable automatic download, and whether to always check whether the download is available. For accounts in non-country regions, you can also check iTunes Store in the “Display”, so that even if you do not subscribe to Apple Music, you can still purchase digital music in the iTunes Store – just like buying and downloading music on iTunes before Same.
In “Playback”, you mainly adjust playback-related settings, such as whether to set the balanced volume, whether to set fade in and fade out, whether to enable lossless music, set the quality of streaming and downloading, and so on.
If there is video content here, you can also choose the playback quality and download quality, etc., but here is a little different from the macOS music application. The Windows version of Apple Music cannot set spatial audio, so it cannot Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio are supported.
The “Restrictions” setting mainly corresponds to the previous “Parental Control” setting items on iTunes; “Files” is to set where the media folder is, whether to keep the music media folder organized, and whether to add to the library is to copy the file to the music media folder. The “advanced” function is mainly to record the usage data and ask whether to send the data to Apple and so on.
Judging from the use of Apple Music streaming media, both the playback and user experience are actually quite good. The only disadvantage is that it does not support the display of lyrics like the music application on macOS. Perhaps this will be officially added in a new version in the future. item function.
Apple TV for Windows 11 Experience: Barely Useful
Compared with the near perfection of Apple Music for Windows 11, the experience of Apple TV for Windows 11 is not so good. Previously, if you wanted to watch Apple TV on Windows, you could only play it through the browser webpage, but the appearance of the official independent application seems to bring the experience to a higher level.
Like Apple Music, we can also perform a series of settings on Apple TV. The content of the settings is similar, and the quality of the playback can basically achieve the same experience as the video app on macOS. The only thing is that it is not so impressive. The cool thing is that it cannot support Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos included in self-made dramas.
Therefore, in order to obtain the best viewing effect of Apple TV+, the ideal choice is still the hardware under the current Apple ecosystem.
Apple Devices for Windows 11: too crude device management
In addition to the above streaming media services, there is another scenario for using iTunes on Windows: managing iOS/iPadOS devices, such as manually upgrading the iOS/iPadOS system, backing up the device system, managing and synchronizing the media cabinet, etc.
If you want to eliminate iTunes in the future, you must launch a tool application specifically for managing iOS/iPadOS. This is Apple Devices, which is specially launched by Apple for Windows.
But after you actually start using it, you will find that the management functions of Apple Devices are actually very simple, although from the interface point of view, it includes system upgrades and device data backup functions in device management, as well as synchronous photos, music, movies, TV Program sub-pages.
But in fact, after clicking on each tab, it will prompt that the library is not opened, but when you open the Apple Music or Apple TV application, you will find that these two applications cannot manage iOS/iPadOS like music or video applications on macOS For the corresponding content in , the only functions that can be used are device system upgrade and data backup. Obviously, in terms of the device resource management function alone, the preview version currently on the shelves is still far from perfect.
In addition, Apple Devices cannot manage the file data in the application in iOS/iPadOS, so if you have the habit of transferring files to an application in the iOS/iPadOS device through the desktop, Apple Devices at this stage cannot satisfy you at all. your usage needs.
epilogue
Although Apple fulfilled its promise, it officially launched an independent Apple Music/Apple TV application for Windows users, and it is likely to accelerate the replacement of the Windows version of iTunes.
But whether it is from the logo of the preview version or the comparison of the final specific functions, it is not difficult for us to find that Apple still has a long way to go in order to bid farewell to iTunes.
Of course, we can still see Apple’s ambitions and ideas in these independent apps, and cross-platform to provide its own services for other platform users is also the future development trend of Apple. These “post-iTunes” era apps will also be in It will be gradually improved in the future.
This article is from the WeChat public account “Minority” (ID: sspaime), author: chemical mood 2, editor in charge: waychane, 36 krypton is authorized to publish.
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