The Cupertino-based company Apple is implementing a major change to iTunes, a leaked email revealed earlier this week. The source of the email pointed out that Apple would no longer take new iTunes LP submissions for the month of March.
Is Apple’s iTune’s nearing its end?
In case you don’t know, LP is about an interactive album which allows users to view various media contents while playing music. This includes photos, lyrics and videos, according to the tech giant Apple.
Apple’s LP was launched back in 2009 and it one way that users would be able to buy albums that include bonus tracks and videos as well. But industry experts claim that LP is one of the changes from iTunes to compete with Spotify, an app that maintains subscription-based for music streaming platforms.
The End of iTunes LPs
The leaked internal email was titled, “The End of iTunes LPs” was reported first by the Metro, a popular publication report.
Based on the same Metro report, the leaked email was addressed to “The iTunes Store” as it was sent two weeks ago. It was the Apple Music Team who signed the leaked email.
“Apple will no longer accept new submissions of iTunes LPs after March 2018. Existing LPs will be deprecated from the store during the remainder of 2018.
Customers who have previously purchased an album containing an iTunes LP will still be able to download the additional content using iTunes Match’, a portion of the email reads.
Moreover, the source of the leaked email remains unknown. The source told the Metro that “it’s clear that streaming is the future. Apple wants to push people to take out subscriptions.”
Despite this, industry experts said that this could be perceived that Apple would be pursuing a subscription-based outlet similar to that of Spotify.
Meanwhile, Mark Mulligan, an analyst at MIDiA Research and music industry blogger, told the Metro that the leaked email as proof that Apple is revamping its business model.
“This could show Apple will turn off its download store at some point,” he said. “At some stage in the future, Apple having an iTunes music store will be as incongruous as Currys selling black and white TVs.”
