macOS 10.15 Expected to Feature Standalone Music and Podcasts Apps and Redesigned Books App

The next major release of macOS will feature standalone Music and Podcasts apps alongside Apple's promised TV app coming to the Mac this fall, according to 9to5Mac's Guilherme Rambo, who has discovered icons for the apps. Rambo says he has confirmed the plans with sources familiar with the matter.

podcasts tv mac icons

Image via 9to5Mac

The report also claims that the existing Books app on Mac will be redesigned to look more like the Apple News app on Mac.

Like the ‌Apple News‌, Home, Stocks, and Voice Memos apps on macOS Mojave, Rambo says the new Music, Podcasts, and TV apps will be built with Apple's so-called Marzipan developer tools, which allow for a single app to be designed to run across iPhone, iPad, and Mac with a similar codebase.

Despite the standalone Music and Podcasts apps, Rambo says iTunes will stick around on the next major macOS release, as it is still used for some legacy purposes like manual syncing of older iPhones, iPads, and iPods.

Apple's plans to bring UIKit-based Music, Podcasts, and possibly Books apps to the Mac were first hinted at by developer Steve Troughton-Smith on Twitter last week. Apple should unveil macOS 10.15 alongside iOS 13, watchOS 6, and tvOS 13 at WWDC 2019, which kicks off on June 3 in San Jose.

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Top Rated Comments

PJivan Avatar
79 months ago
I remember the days when Mac OS updates were interesting. We talked about things like multitasking, 64-bit, Quartz Extreme, Fast User Switching, Expose, other GUI changes etc.
Now the big features are mainly service related...
Like new file system, 32 bit deprecation, SIP and Gatekeeper, external gpu, Core ML, caching server, metal, marzipan are not deep and interesting change... maybe you don't like IT like you used to.
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TMRJIJ Avatar
79 months ago
As long as it is fully functional. The current Marzipan apps seemed quite lazy and just simple ports of the iOS counterpart with no added desktop features.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mikey44 Avatar
79 months ago
I have a feeling that the music app will only be Apple Music, rather than allowing you to maintain your own library, which is what iTunes is supposed to do... I'd love to be proved wrong, but based on how Apple has been moving... they are trying to push services so much recently.

Each of these can earn them some money, where as a dedicated library doesn't earn them as much money.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dombi Avatar
79 months ago
I remember the days when Mac OS updates were interesting. We talked about things like multitasking, 64-bit, Quartz Extreme, Fast User Switching, Expose, other GUI changes etc.
Now the big features are mainly service related...
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chucker23n1 Avatar
79 months ago
I remember the days when Mac OS updates were interesting. We talked about things like multitasking,
APFS

64-bit,
Swift

Quartz Extreme
Metal

Fast User Switching
Desktop Stacks

, Expose,
Continuity (Auto Unlock, Universal Clipboard, Handoff, Personal Hotspot, text message sync, AirDrop)

other GUI changes
Dark Mode

Siri, Purgeable Storage, Tabs, Night Shift, Notification Center.

Heck, Continuity alone is awesome. It took several releases to work reliably for me, but when it does, it's really awesome.

Keep in mind that early Mac OS X releases added many features in part because, well, they kind of lacked them. It wasn't until around 10.3 or 10.4 that all the essential features were there.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jagolden Avatar
79 months ago
Nothing bloated about iTunes. It’s quite simple, one-stop for buying/loading/ripping music and audio files. The term “bloated” seems to be thrown around a lot without any understanding or support to back it up.
It’s certainly not confusing to use, and unless your computer is under powered, it’s certainly not slow.

Unlike so many it seems, I’m quite capable on manually managing my files, don’t need someone else to do it for me.
Don’t need auto-sync or sync over wi-fi.
Having tens of thousands of music and audio files both in and out of iTunes, managing the files I want at any given time using iTunes is ideal.
I don’t even keep thousands of files in iTunes, simply dragging them onto my phone or iPods when desired. Why would I want to give this up?
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)