Apple splits iTunes into three apps in macOS Catalina

Along with the new iPadOS, Apple has also previewed macOS Catalina which comes with new features, including the splitting of iTunes into three apps.

Let’s start with iTunes. In macOS Catalina, Apple will replace iTunes with its standalone versions of Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and the Apple TV app. With Apple Music, users can still have access to their entire music library as well as 50 million songs, playlists, and music videos. For the Apple Podcasts, it offers more than 700,000 shows in its catalog and the option to automatically be notified of new episodes as soon as they become available.

And for Apple TV, it comes with personalized recommendations and over 100,000 iTunes movies and TV shows to browse, buy or rent. The Watch Now section features Up Next, where viewers can keep track of what they are currently watching and resume on any screen. This fall, Apple TV+, Apple’s original video subscription service, will be available in the Apple TV app.

As for other features, Apple introduced Sidecar turns the iPad into an extended display for Mac and a high-precision drawing tablet across supported Mac apps with the help of the Apple Pencil. It works with Final Cut Pro X, Adobe Illustrator, and iWork documents.

It also has new assistive technologies like Voice Control so users can control their Mac entirely with voice using on-device Siri speech recognition technology. It also has new labels and grids to let users interact with virtually any app using comprehensive navigation tools, with audio processing happening on-device.

Apple also improved security on the macOS Catalina with Gatekeeper that checks all apps for known security issues, while new data protections require all apps to get permission before accessing user documents.

There’s also Screen Time which gives Mac users insight into how they spend time in apps and on websites, and the tools to help decide how to spend their time. It has the new “One more minute” feature that gives users more time to save their work or log out of a game.

macOS Catalina will be available this fall as a free software update for Macs introduced in mid-2012 or later.

source: Apple