According to the reports, Apple will be discontinuing its multimedia album format iTunes LP at the end of this month.
The Apple iTunes LP format debuted in 2009 in order to encourage the music industry into the digital age by allowing CDs and albums to be bundled with extra features and to enthrall its customers by giving them access to videos that include lyrics, photos, and liner notes – but this format has never been optimized for iPhone and iPad users.
Once downloaded, iTunes LP would offer an interactive experience where songs could be heard alongside videos in order to encourage users to purchase the entire albums at full price rather than buying individual songs.
According to reports, Apple told its iTunes partners last month that new iTunes LP submissions will no longer be accepted starting April 1. It also said:
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
In spite of the given details of iTunes LP format on its website, including how its TuneKit API works with the feature, it is not hard to believe that Apple is killing iTunes LP.
It is evident that Apple’s attention has shifted to its subscription music service provider, Apple Music, which includes similar features as iTunes LP. Apple Music has added support for displaying lyrics in a recent software update, and Apple Music Connect lets artists share photos, and videos with fans in real-time yet this feature has not been proved to be very popular.
Accordingly, some sources note that although Apple is going to kill the iTunes LP format soon, with a sigh of relief, we can assume that Apple will always keep the ray of hope glowing for the ardent audiences of digital music.
