Apple is Bringing iTunes To the Windows Store (theverge.com) 87
Tom Warren, writing for The Verge: Apple is planning to bring its iTunes desktop app to the Windows Store. In a surprise announcement at the Build developer event today, Microsoft revealed it has been working with Apple to get iTunes listed in the Windows Store. It might not sound like an important addition, but iTunes is one of the most searched for apps that's currently missing in the Windows Store. USA Today veteran columnist, summing up the announcement, "Microsoft announces that iTunes (incl Apple Music and full support for iPhone) is coming to the Windows Store. Big get for Microsoft." Microsoft's communication head, summing up the situation, "Didn't see that one coming, did you!"
Nex Axes of Evil (Score:2)
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According to the metaphor, isn't this Microsoft and Apple teaming up to remove the wall between their respective gardens?
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depends. i doubt this partnership will improve or even last that long, but in principle they could use the removed bits of wall to shore up their position against the rest of the industry. and by wall, i mean patents and general duopolistic shenanigans.
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Assuming this new Windows 10s thing is going to be a consumer device, and may end up selling lots of units, Apple kind of needs to support it. I don't suppose they need to do more than package up their Win32 code - doubt they'd do a complete rewrite.
Maybe Apple sees this as a way to hurt Google. Chromebooks can't run iTunes, 10s Chromebook competitors will. Do you even need iTunes to deal with an iPhone these days. The one pain in the ass of my 'everything on Linux' lifestyle is dealing with an old iPod
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Not really, unless you want to do playlist management. iOS devices can back themselves up to the cloud now, perform iOS upgrades and do pretty much everything else without a PC.
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Re:Nex Axes of Evil (Score:5, Funny)
But the new guards have rounded corners and anodized aluminium guns.
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thats good, means after a few shots they wont be accurate anymore. just dont be one of the first 15 people to get shot!
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But the new guards have rounded corners and anodized aluminium guns.
Personally, I prefer black latex but I am not going to kink-shame anyone here.
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In other news, Microsoft and Apple team up to add more walls to their gardens. The combined effort will be called Mapple On Line. CDs are already in the mail.
Too bad no one with a computer newer than 2012 can use them for anything more than a coaster for their coffee cup!
Re: So? (Score:5, Funny)
So one of the most gawdawful bloated pieces of shit software is now available on probably the worst online store on the Internet.
What a coup.
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So one of the most gawdawful bloated pieces of shit software is now available on probably the worst online store on the Internet.
What a coup.
Hopefully someone at slashdot can update the title with your more appropriate summary.
New Windows Phone? (Score:2)
Well I know running iTunes on my Windows desktop is what made me ditch my Apple phone and go Android, so perhaps Microsoft is banking on that...
The backup function of iTunes worked well I found, but not much else. Broken by design.
Re:New Windows Phone? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's what drove me away. I owned precisely one iPhone, and while there were aspects of the phone that I liked, after a couple of years of having to use iTunes I went out and bought a Nexus 5, and oh my goodness, I could just copy my MP3s over using a normal file browser, I could install VLC and play any damned video file I wanted, and while Android always feel a little rougher around the edges, it's not enough for me to ever go back to iDevices.
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Exactly the same. One of my biggest pet peeves was exactly the mp3 transfer and music library. Every so often for what seemed like no particular reason it would un-link my library from my file structure. A quick google showed that the issue had been around for years. So long in fact that a 3rd party of free developers created a tool to re-link your files. However every release of iTunes would "accidentally" break their tool, after awhile the developers eventually gave up trying to keep up. Apple had no inte
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It's been available to users. You could download it from a number of places. The big difference now is it's available in the precious windows App Store.
Exactly. This announcement is just a truckload of no big deal.
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Yes, but putting on the Windows Store means you can install it on Windows 10S! Yay!
Windows 10 S in K-12, university, and beyond (Score:2)
With the implication being "It would be inappropriate to allow a student to synchronize a personal entertainment device with a computer owned by a public school district," correct?
The appropriateness then depends on two things. The first is whether Microsoft plans to promote Windows 10 S only for K-12 or also for university, where a student is more likely to own the computer rather than leasing it from a school district. The second is whether Microsoft plans to attempt to expand Windows 10 S beyond the educ
Microsoft announced? (Score:3)
Yeah.... this will be news when _Apple_ announces this. Until then this might just be Microsoft helping keep shareholders excited.
Will they block non-store installs on Win10? (Score:2)
The big question is whether this is truly an evil deal where Microsoft and Apple have colluded in such a way that the ONLY way to install iTunes is now through the Microsoft store.
This would be a great deal for Microsoft, getting Apple to force iPhone/iPad users running Windows 10 to sign up for the Windows store.
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The big question is whether this is truly an evil deal where Microsoft and Apple have colluded in such a way that the ONLY way to install iTunes is now through the Microsoft store.
This would be a great deal for Microsoft, getting Apple to force iPhone/iPad users running Windows 10 to sign up for the Windows store.
No need to collude. Microsoft could just do like Apple and block all executable not installed by the App Store by default.
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They don't have to block manual application installs, and I doubt that they will be able to get there any time soon given the giant legacy code base of all Windows applications.
They just need Apple to agree that their Windows installer for non-Win10 platforms will not run on Windows 10, only a special store-only version. This would force all Win10 iTunes users to sign up for the MS store and download the app that way, which would likely capture huge numbers of new store users.
The Windows store suffers from
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Stop giving them ideas! not that i use itunes for my iphone.. but for the sake of the plebs please stop!
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backward compatibility is what kills windows..... If you could force developers to move off Win32 and us the new UWP platform, you'd have far fewer problems with the OS. The app store is actually a good thing. UWP apps are a good thing. Microsoft, however, did not have the balls to stand behind this, and offered up Centenntial, so, unfortunately, Win32 lives on. All in all, Windows has been remarkably backward compatible over the years, too much so to its detriment.
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I'll believe it when Centennial is powerful enough to run Visual Studio.
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Mod this up! If i hadnt commented i would. You make a very valid point. and thats part of the problem today, a lot of devs arent old enough to have used shitty software on low end hardware. since even todays low end hardware dwarfs what the high end would have been years ago.
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OSX does not do this. You can install anything you want there. Microsoft store is irrelevant anyway, you were always able to install iTunes on Windows 10 assuming you weren't running the RT or other broken versions. Just head to apple.com and download it.
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I tried to help someone with a Mac remotely over team viewer. Told her to download it and run the executable. She got an error message saying the application must be installed from the App Store. Admin rights were not enough to execute the program.
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That's why I said BY DEFAULT.
I would certainly have done it have I been able to connect remotely... but I wasn't.
Remember shareware? (Score:2)
The difference? Windows 10 S won't let you turn that off, ever.
Of course it will: one-time payment of $50. Do you remember the "shareware" scene on the Mac, where a reduced-functionality demo of an application would circulate widely as an advertisement for the registered version? Windows 10 S can be considered a reduced-functionality demo of Windows 10 Pro.
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i had that same issue once. a quick google search resolves it.
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I've never seen that, and I installed Team Viewer on my macbook. Seriously, you can't even use the App Store if you don't have an Apple ID.
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You must not have the latest OS X or turned off that setting.
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It's Sierra, 10.12.4. I do get the message that the file was downloaded from the internet and it won't run, but you get past that by right clicking on the app and select "open". You can change a security setting also (allow from app store and identified developers) and I think IT pre-selected this as a group policy for us. So maybe I hadn't run into the issue as hard like a home user would.
I've got applications designed and sold for the Mac which do not appear in the Apple Store (and that store is full of
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This is not actually a bad thing. One of the problems with windows is that every software has its own updater etc.
Itunes through the windows store, hopefully means itunes update goes away, as it will now be handled via the store updater. And frankly I hope adobe reader, and java are available through store soon too. I wouldn't mind getting filezilla and qbittorrent and notepad++ and firefox and telegram and ... through a storefront too because it seems every day at least one of them needs an update.
My issu
app stores with forced sand boxing / censorship ne (Score:2)
app stores with forced sand boxing / censorship need to go as well.
censorship is bad with only one app store. Why not have an adults only area of the app store. As right now you can have one that will block games like Softporn Adventure but at the same time have HBO / MAX in it that does it in 1080P.
sand boxing sucks for games with user mods / maps / and 3rd party tools. Can you have an game with it's own mapedit.exe that can work with game.exe without the sandbox getting in the way?
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Can you have an game with it's own mapedit.exe that can work with game.exe without the sandbox getting in the way?
Yes, provided the "mapedit" and "game" applications use either UWP file pickers [microsoft.com] or the Share contract [microsoft.com], which Microsoft is suspiciously not calling an "intent".
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Sideloading in Windows 10 S costs $50 extra.
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As long as sideloading exists
What you're referring to is called "Installing a program" sideloading is some shit that young people made up because they have become complacent with everything being "proprietary" which is bullshit and should not exist when it comes to an operating system. If I can write a program I should not have to jump through hoops or pay to be able to install it.
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I wouldn't mind getting filezilla and qbittorrent and notepad++ and firefox and telegram and ... through a storefront too because it seems every day at least one of them needs an update.
Just for that, you shouldn't need a store. If third party software could simply register the security certificate that most have anyway and an update check URL you should be able to get one "update all" button, "shut down and install updates" etc. like for Windows updates or on Linux but Microsoft doesn't want to provide those third party facilities. Not unless they get a cut.
Universal app version maybe? (Score:3)
The interesting thing about this is whether or not Microsoft is going to get out of the media-selling business. You can buy movies and music for your XBox or PC through the Windows Store, but adding iTunes as a client might mean they're getting away from that...who knows? With Windows Phone pretty much cooked, maybe they're starting to figure that a large part of their Store ecosystem doesn't make sense anymore.
I wonder if the app is going to be a Universal rewrite, or if they're using that Project Centennial Win32 emulator to move the existing app to the store.
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Funny you mention that, but I think the ms store actually farms out a lot of, at least movies, from 3rd party sources.
The reason I say this is recently I tried searching for "the name of the rose" (which is a great movie btw) on the itunes store and it came up blank, I did a search on the ms store and found it but it was for rental only (almost like it was found on showtime or hbo, except this was in the ms store)
They probably will eventually just make the selections look universal, i'm going to guess itune
Microsoft Word (Score:2)
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They don't need to bother putting it on the Windows Store.
The Windows Store is about getting a piece of the revenue from app sales. They already get 100% of the Office revenue. Plus, they get that sweet subscription revenue from Office365.
If the Windows Store security model ever gets locked down to the point where desktop apps cannot share storage with Store apps, then they'll need to put Office in the Store. Until then, there's no need---and, more importantly, they don't get more money out of it.
Yo Dawg... (Score:2)
I heard you likes stores, so I put a store in your store so you can shop while you shop...
Are we still doing that?
What about Steam? EA Origin? Ubisoft UPlay? GoG? (Score:2)
iTunes was easy to see, if people ran Windows 10 S and couldn't connect their iPhone or iPad they'd get rid of Windows. But Steam Origin GoG and UPlay would be surprising to see on there.
I pity the fool who uses iTunes (Score:1)
iTunes, last time I looked, was the single worst piece of software I've ever seen.
It's the AOL Browser of music libraries.
I pity the fool who uses it and imagines that this is what software is like and accepts it.
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Um... yes I did. (Score:2)
Microsoft's communication head, summing up the situation, "Didn't see that one coming, did you!"
Yeah...
So as the Microsoft store struggles for relevance, it arranges to bring the most popular $0 programs to its store. Colour me completely unsurprised. This couldn't have been more unexpected if it arrived on the back of three red-robed cardinals proclaiming a Spanish inquisition.
Great (Score:1)
Now an entirely new generation of users can find out what it's like to see an app get worse and worse with every release. iTunes is the ultimate example of how Apple has no regard its users. Using iTunes from the beginning until now has been in a word painful.
All we need now (Score:2)
Windows Store apps that browse the web need to use (Score:2)
Windows Store apps that browse the web need to use Microsoft’s Edge engine.
Is why the app stores need to have antitrust rules as part of them.
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That's the big downer with the way they're running the windows store.
If they want the windows store to flourish, they need to find ways for users to get ALL of the windows applications they want, including web browsers.
Microsoft, why not have a certification programme for web browsers so that approved web browsers are able to use their own engines?
I think that'd keep users happy as well as help with increased use of the Windows Store. It may also please those that are calling "monopoly" and "antitrust"
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as much as Apple touts standards and practices in their own operating systems, they play fast and loose with Windows.
Yes, but everybody plays fast and loose with Windows, especially Microsoft.
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iTunes Store downloads purchased copies of nonexecutable works. Steam downloads purchased copies of executable works. The bright line drawn by the Windows Store security model crosses between nonexecutable and executable.