Screenshots Reveal First Look at the New Music and TV Apps in macOS 10.15

There hasn’t been a lot of information on what we can expect when Apple unveils macOS 10.15 next week — we don’t even know what it’s going to be called yet — but one big change we have been hearing about is that Apple will finally be breaking up the monolithic iTunes app in favour of the set of standalone apps that have long been the norm on iOS.

While many had been concerned that Apple was going to use its new Marzipan framework to basically port the much less feature-rich iOS versions of the music, podcasts, and TV apps over to the Mac — much like it did with its Home, News, Stocks and Voice Memo apps last year — the good news is that new macOS Music app, at least, won’t be a watered-down version of iTunes.

Now, 9to5Mac’s Guilherme Rambo, who has been on fire lately with leaked details and screenshots of iOS 13, has managed to obtain some screenshots of what the new Music and TV apps will look like when macOS 10.15 debuts next week.

Rambo notes that the screenshots of these apps are coming directly from “people involved in their development,” and while they don’t reveal a lot of detail as some data has been redacted to protect the sources, they do provide an idea of what the new layout will look like, as well as illustrating that the new apps are not going to in any way simply be direct Marzipan ports of their iOS counterparts.

It looks like Apple will be adopting a similar design language across all of the new apps, with both the Music and TV apps showing a gray sidebar that lists sections of content with a large area on the right that will show the actual content. It’s basically the classic iTunes design with a more modern aesthetic, and also sees the welcome return of much more colourful sidebar icons, moving away from the grayscale design that’s plagued iTunes for the past several years.

Apple also appears to be using the colors as a motif for the different apps, with the Music app leaning toward the pinks and purples, while the TV app uses shades of green and blue. These tint colours are said to match the app icons themselves, which seems like a logical design choice, and follow a continuous color gradient from top to bottom.

The Music app appears to follow in iTunes’ footsteps fairly closely, although it breaks out Apple Music into its own section at the top of the sidebar, with the For You, Browse, and Radio sections presented here rather than across the top. Below this, however, the typical Library and Playlists sections appear, and it looks like Apple will even still be including the legacy “Genius” feature in the new version, reinforcing the previous rumours that Apple really does intend to bring all of the features of iTunes over the new Music app. It’s been reported that the new app will even retain the ability to sync with iPhones and iPods, likely even including legacy models, in which case it really would be a direct replacement for iTunes.

Interestingly, however, the new TV app retains the top navigation bar style that was more typical of iTunes, with Watch Now, Movies, TV Shows, and Kids sections across the top, followed by a Library section for the user’s own content. Our guess is that Apple is trying to more closely mirror the design of the recently-updated TV app on iOS and tvOS, but it also follows the design of the macOS Books app, which will also be getting an update in macOS 10.15. Each section from the top will reportedly display a distinct sidebar for that category of content.

While Rambo doesn’t have screenshots of the new Podcasts and Books apps, it seems like a safe bet that they’ll also use similar designs. There’s been a standalone Books app on macOS for a few years already, although it’s expected to also move away from the monochrome to adopt the more colourful design of its new Music and TV counterparts.

Apple is expected to officially take the wraps off macOS 10.15 on Monday, at which point we’ll undoubtedly see what all of these new apps look like and be hearing more about what features they’ll be offering.

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]