Sure. Hopefuly "a bunch" could be reduced to just two: Apple Music client and iPhone sync app. The rest would be removed without a replacement (on Windows). The headphone jack removal shows that Apple is willing to make people angry about some things for a long term benefit and iTunes is imho a good candidate for the next "act of courage", heh.

Could they drop the iPhone sync app completely? These days the iPhone should be able to do all the syncing it needs directly against the internet.

Not everyone lives in SV, not everyones internet connections can handle uploading then downloading 10s/100s of gigs of media

Maybe, but I think there's still some value to a controlled management application for either a large volume or to at least ensure that it's not a faulty wireless connection. It's a lot easier to move a few hundred gig over lightning than it is over wifi, and that first impression is probably going to be the biggest.

Then again, if they do go towards a totally wireless phone, I guess it would only be sensible to just ditch the lightning port entirely. and have a fully sealed case.

Still, I'd be pretty happy to have a stand-alone sync/management app; right now I use iTunes as an staging ground just to make sure that whatever goes on the phone looks right in iTunes first (correct tagging, correct album artwork). I don't mind it in this function, but if I could I would do away with it.

A stand-alone management application for large volume already exists (intended for business and schools that issue Apple devices): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-configurator-2/id10371...

Well, I was more meaning like moving 20+ gig of music or other data, not for managing devices. As far as I know, the apple configurator is more of a management tool not an individual device tool (for sending media)

isn't itunes still needed in some "recovery" situations? Like fixing a bad update, backing up/restoring a phone, and (not quite along the same lines, but important to me) allowing install of in-dev applications.

I guess some of those could be handled by going into an apple store, but I'd still be a bit peeved if they removed the lifeline to my phone as a cost cutting measure.

I have been using TestFairy to try in-dev applications. It has been fine without iTunes, but I don't develop on iOS myself.

a dedicated "update/restore" client makes more sense, in that case. Not saying it can't also be bundled in itunes, but something with, say, a bit more diagnostic view when run separately would be nice/useful, and not stop the general purpose use cases in iTunes.

> These days the iPhone should be able to do all the syncing it needs directly against the internet.

If Apple provided a documented set of APIs to allow me to setup my own server then this would make sense. As it is, I see no reason why apple should hold my backups on their systems, why they should have any involvement with my syncing of data to my phone.

Maybe I'm in the minority but I still use it to sync a bunch of stuff off my NAS to my devices. I wish there was a better way to do it, but the wifi sync at home is about as good as I can get given the restrictions.

You still have speed issues with certain areas.

I'm no expert of course but areas like the south in the United States are still stuck on DSL lines and even older technology.

I would think that this would be reasoning for not doing that yet.

My ISP limits my internet usage to 5 GB a month unless I pay a lot more money (Verizon Wireless)

I really don't think they would. iTunes has been awful for pretty much the entirety of it's existence. It's not Windows stopping it being magically wonderful.

Is that so? Some years ago I remember some rando's blog post that seemed to completely invent this narrative from thin air, and it got repeated a lot by Apple fans who have never built Windows applications and probably grossly overestimate its cost. This seems like a pretty lame excuse for one of the world's most powerful companies to not do something it would otherwise want to do.

I don't guess it's a cost issue. iTunes is the Apple trojan horse into the Windows platform. They know that they can get anything onto a Windows desktop by crammng it into this one application. My guess is that strategically they don't want to give this up.

So you don't think apple can break up the app into various components and provide a single installer and call the whole bundle "iTunes".

And failing that, you don't think users are capable of installing multiple things or coping with a re-brand.

But if they did this only on the Mac all these things would work. Windows is the key.

Sorry, I do not think this is the reason. More likely they just don't want to put resources into a ground up overhaul of iTunes.