What is changing are four new apps evolving from iTunes which are Apple’s Music app, AppleTV, Podcasts, and Books. Be assured that all iTunes Gift Cards and iTunes credits will still work and that all the music you currently have in your iTunes Music Library will continue to work with the new Music app.
Change Affects Mac Users
All Apple users can rest assured that the iTunes Store will still be available to buy & play music on Mac, iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch, as well as PCs and Apple TV. What changes this fall with the release of the new macOS Catalina (10.15) operating system on your Mac is your Music that you’ve imported or purchased, including all your playlists [and smart playlists] that you’ve created in iTunes will be in the new Apple Music app (note that this doesn’t mean you necessarily have to subscribe to Apple Music (the streaming service).
Movies and TV shows that you purchased or rented from iTunes will be in the new Apple TV app. Podcasts that you subscribed to or added to iTunes will now be in the new Apple Podcasts app. Audiobooks that you purchased from iTunes will now be in the updated Apple Books app. One significant change with iTunes’ departure in Catalina is you will no longer manage all your devices from iTunes but instead will do this in the Finder.
On your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad you won’t notice any differences with the iTunes Store and you already have these apps on your iPhone. We’re still waiting for the announcement related to Windows iTunes, Apple hasn’t announced what this means for Windows PC users.
We’ve often thought Apple gradually packed a ridiculous amount of features into iTunes on the Mac (perhaps too many) over the years and this split of the various functions into their own unique apps seems to us to be an intelligent evolution and mimics Apple’s current iOS offerings. Apple even joked about this during their recent keynote pretending that they were adding calendar, contacts and word processing functionality into a new iTunes as well.