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The end of iTunes: What it means for you
Well, iTunes, it was a good run. According to reports from knowledgeable developers, this fall marks the end of the viable life of an 18-year-old app that started as an MP3 jukebox and ended up as an all-purpose media player, e-commerce engine, and mobile-device synchronizer.
It may be hard to believe it now, but iTunes began as a pretty great music player. iTunes was so good, and so successful, in fact, that Apple turned it into the repository for pretty much every media and device strategy that followed, making iTunes into a hodgepodge of features that was simultaneously unbearable (for users) and unkillable (for Apple).
The end may be nigh, but while iTunes may soon leave active service, it’s not going anywhere for quite a while.