iTunes is Dead. Long Live iTunes.

Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC2019) is an exciting time for developers, but they’re not the only ones paying attention. Apple users tune in, too, because this show is part briefing and part marketing event, telling us what’s coming next on Apple’s sizeable list of platforms.

iTunes

The once-venerated app has become bloated over the last decade. Apple has broken it out so that Apple Music handles music, Podcasts handles podcasts (indexing spoken content with machine learning – this is a big deal), and Apple TV handling TV, Movies content, both purchased and Rendered. Sync has be relegated to Finder, so you can manage your plugged-in iPhone there… but who plugs in their iPhone anymore?

New Mac0S Features Announced at WWDC

Sidecar is a neat feature that brings the use of your iPad as an external display… and as a tablet for your Mac. My iPad Pro just became an Intuos Cintiq replacement at no extra charge; that’s a big deal.

Voice Control coming to MacOS and iOS as an accessibility feature is pretty impressive; we’re starting to see the three competitors in Voice differentiate. Google’s rich search access is a win, Alexa’s app ecosystem is powerful… but Apple may be a dark horse about to take the lead. Local on-device voice processing sounds like it will be a powerful feature.

Find My Mac and Activation Lock are great new features to help end theft of Apple Devices. Find My Mac uses existing Bluetooth Traffic to track down your Mac (like a Tile tracker!) while Activation Lock locks an T2-enabled Mac down, preventing it from being used without being activated with your secured iCloud account.

Project Catalyst is a bringing iPad apps to Mac. Apple News and Home both use that technology now; I’ve used Home at home myself, and I’m using News on a regular basis. For App developers this is a big deal, and for Users it means we’re going to see more great apps.

MineCraft AR is an incredible demonstration of just how far ahead Apple is in Augmented Reality; Users can literally step into Minecraft worlds, with realtime occlusion making it look and feel like you’re really there.

All of these MacOS Features are coming to Canada with the launch of Mac OS 10.15 Catalina this fall.