The Music app is basically iTunes—but with a design update that puts Apple Music at the fore. You can still see your entire music library, of course, and even buy music on the iTunes Store if you want to. As someone who uses iTunes with Apple Music every day, I’m okay with this change. And if you click on the Songs view in the Library section of the sidebar, you will get your classic iTunes song list back, like it never left.
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And that is as good a description of why I use Roon over other media players.
On the other hand, if some posters have their way Roon would become another bloated JShiver.
I’m ok with this change. I’m not an Apple person. I’ve owned some iPod Touches, never Mac. I never really was an Apple fan, though I always respected what they did for an audience that wasn’t me. Every time I wanted to see what the buzz was about I’d experience tons of limitations that made me think “why are people raving about this stuff?” But back in the Steve Jobs days I at least respected that there was a non-tech audience it really really spoke to, and knew it was the right product for that market.
Flash forward to today, and when I signed up for Apple Music in the past year after discovering it has a ton of back catalog in genres no other service, including Spotify, adequately covers, I bit my lip and actually chose to pay Apple. I started with it on mobile and then decided to get it streaming to my CCA. No can do. Tried to stream to my Denon network music player. No can do. Bought a Sonos just for it…the app isn’t feature complete. Decided to just get a PC (now the Roon core/UI) tablet to run it…and what did I discover is the only way to play Apple Music? iTunes. Great… I thought I left that behind me with my last iPod. Oh well I’m sure it’s much more modern now, that was, like, a decade ago. So I installed it. And it’s the same app it was in the the early 2000’s.
Just the other day I was using it instead of Roon (I love Tidal, but it only has 70% of the music I want…Apple has the rest… 
) and was cursing it out…I tend to play my music as “my own DJ.” I build a play list on the fly, chaining the music together into a flow. Roon is beautiful for that. Nice big touch screen friendly buttons for my tablet controller. Tidal and Deezer do great with that too. Spotify is “ok-ish-I guess”…but iTunes is a slow bloated horror that crashed 3x while playing music and I mis-clicked the 90’s interface buttons multiple times, halting the music and wiping my on-the-fly playlist forcing me to start from Scratch. Meanwhile my library is built around hundreds of albums I bought on iTunes back when electricity was first discovered.
Hard to say no to a new interface for that thing and a more Music focus. Although Apple’s post-Jobs UIs have been going 0 for 30. It’s like the worst of 90’s Microsoft design, while MS has been getting more Apple than Apple. Hopefully they make iTunes better than worse.
Though I suppose that further rules out the already unlikely Roon integration 
If you are a Windows user then iTunes is here to stay. It will it be broken up for Mac’s etc.
I would unlike that comment if I could… 
This is interesting:
https://dougscripts.com/itunes/2019/06/first-thoughts-about-music-app/
I had always assumed Roon reads the iTunes .itl file. Although this might be wrong?
“There doesn’t appear to be an automatically updated “iTunes Library.xml” file.”
Isn’t that how Roon gets playlists etc when syncing with iTunes libraries? Is that going to die then?
I still use iTunes as my primary method for adding music, simply because I like the way it organises everything into neat folders by artist on the disk, which makes finding anything in the filesystem a whole load easier.
“No Column Browser (sad).”
Hmm, that’s the most useful thing about iTunes as a media organizer.
I don think its possible for any application other than itunes to read the itl file directly.
It depends on what you are talking about. Adding movies, sure, that would be quite the excursion from Roon’s current mission. But I don’t think it’s fair to just insist that the exact feature set you alone prefer is all that should appropriately be in Roon.
You cannot please a large group with only a prescribed set of configurations. It requires configurability. There are JRiver users who leverage those functions you may call bloat.
As usual, you selectively misrepresent my post.
I for one , it’s the only way I can realistically navigate the large number of box sets in my collection until Roon do something about it …if ever
What a thing to say. Do you have other examples of my misrepresentations of your posts? I am sorry you have been so victimized Slim!
I selected the part of your post the referred to JRiver as bloatware because it was the only part of your post that dealt with JRiver as bloatware. I didn’t realize there was a rule or precedent on the forum that each post had to address everything everyone said in their posts on an item by item basis.
EDIT:
This, I think, is a better example of misrepresenting others’ posts.
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This gives me a lot of hope for the future. I am a heavy user of Doug’s AppleScripts and it looks like there will be a future for my music and movie collecting workflows with the new Music App.
I still use iTunes with the iTunes Match function enabled to stream local files that aren’t available on Tidal to my phone when I am on the go…
I’m still hoping Roon will solve that issue by providing a remote streaming option, but until then, I rely on the iTunes app and the iTunes Match service…
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Not really on topic but can I ask how you find this with Roon? I’ve been looking at various streamers, including one from Denon, but since it’s not Roon ready I’m a bit worried about whether Roon will identify it in the Audio Zone preferences.
Aperture has been dead since the release of version 3. Most of the updates have been bug fixes, stability updates or iCloud integration.
In 2012 I switched to Capture One and the only thing I asked myself why I didn‘t switch earlier.
iTunes has no priority to Apple. They want to move everything to their cloud. iTunes is getting more and more buggy since the last years.
If the Denon streamer uses AirPlay then Roon will stream via AirPlay.
I used to stream to an Onkyo receiver with AirPlay and the SQ really sucks, IMHO.
Many people like this -
https://www.project-audio.com/en/product/stream-box-s2-ultra/
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Thanks for that. The search continues … The Stream-box is interesting but I’ll need a new DAC with it (Pro-Ject as well, probably). Also have the Cambridge CXN v.2 on the radar.
The Stream Box S2 Ultra and Pre Box S2 Digital is a great combination. The DAC in the Pre Box does DSD up to 512 as well as MQA, and it all sounds great. The Stream Box is an excellent streamer. All work very nicely with Roon!
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