Apple has wiped the content of its Facebook and Instagram pages for iTunes, suggesting that the rumors of the service shutting down for good carry some weight to them.
The Cupertino brand is said to roll out three new apps — Music, Podcasts, and TV — as replacement.
Buh-Bye, iTunes
As reported earlier by Mac Rumors, Reddit users discovered that Apple is emptying out its iTunes' social media pages on June 1, including every post, video, and photo, except for their profile images. The news outlet says this occurred within 24 hours, as a cached version of the Facebook page for May 31 still had content.
While the current Facebook page only has a description about Apple TV+, the Instagram page urges visitors to follow the Apple TV page and provides a link to the Apple TV+ website.
In addition, Craig Hockenberry of Iconfactory also pointed out that itunes.apple.com links redirect users to music.apple.com. If nothing else, this is another indication that Apple is phasing out iTunes.
I haven’t seen it reported elsewhere, but as of last weekend all https://t.co/tCyWJ9I1D3 links redirect to https://t.co/c1nzdCWhSp — a likely indicator that the brand is done (the app will be fine for those of us who need it.) — Craig Hockenberry (@chockenberry) June 2, 2019
This comes just as the company is about to kick off its Worldwide Developers Conference 2019, where it's said to announce it's killing the 18-year-old service for good.
For what it's worth, the iTunes page on Twitter is still up and running at the time of writing.
Death Of iTunes
Recently, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reported that Apple will launch Music, Podcasts, and TV macOS apps to fill the void iTunes is leaving behind. Needless to say, these three new apps will give users access to music, podcasts, and TV shows and movies, respectively.
The report also said that managing Apple products will be available on the Music app.
This doesn't come as much of a surprise, considering that the iPhone and iPad have had stand-alone Music, Podcasts, and TV apps for years already. In other words, spreading out the functionalities of iTunes into a trio of apps aligns with the route the company is taking for its mobile platform.
