Since its 2001 launch, Apple’s iTunes revolutionised the music industry, helping steer sales away from physical shops and into the online realm via the iTunes store. iTunes also allowed Apple users to buy or rent films, in addition to listening to podcasts. To replace the much-loved app, Apple is now offering three separate apps for the Mac operating system: Music, Podcasts and TV, with the same configuration existing on iOS for iPhones and iPads.
With Catalina, Apple splits iTunes into three dedicated apps, with each take on some of the responsibilities iTunes carried.
Taking over the music portion of iTunes, Apple Music offers a player, a store and a library for easily organising all songs, albums and even playlists.
The new Music app is fast and features over 50 million songs, playlists and music videos.
Apple Music users will also receive access to their entire music library and new music can still be purchased from the iTunes Store.
Apple Podcasts offers more than 700,000 shows in its enviable catalogue and automatically notifies users of new episodes when they arrive.
The Podcasts app also features new show categories, curated collections and cutting-edge search tools to help users search episodes by current events, people and now phrases.
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The new Sidecar feature extends Mac desktops with iPad as a second display, or tablet input device using Apple Pencil with Mac apps.
Voice Control is an accessibility feature allowing Mac to be controlled entirely by voice.
With Mac Catalyst, a new technology in Catalina that makes it easy for third-party developers to bring iPad apps to Mac, users will begin to see their favourite iPad apps in Mac versions, including Twitter, TripIt, Post-It, GoodNotes and Jira.
And for the first time, Screen Time comes to Mac, giving users insight into how they spend time in apps and on websites, and the ability to decide how to spend their time.