Apple just announced the iPhone 6, and with it, a new version of iTunes (11.4).
All of this raises a question – how long will iTunes keep working for us PowerPC users?
It’s a darn good question, and unfortunately, there is no easy answer. Right now, iTunes (10.6.3) is still the de facto music player on your G5. You can buy music (even getting the new U2 album for free evidently). Music Match still lets you upload your music into the cloud to play on your various devices. That’s pretty cool.
But other new features are done. I doubt you could sync your iPhone 6 with the old iTunes. There is no fancy digital album experiences, no iTunes radio, and so on. This software has got an expiration date, for sure – but when? For how long? Only Apple knows.
I do recommend Music Match if for no other reason than it makes a nifty backup for your music in the mythical cloud. In case, iTunes suddenly quits working and your PowerPC dies a horrible death, you could still grab your music from Apple’s servers to place on a newer machine. It’s an easy way to back stuff up.
In the meanwhile, are there other workarounds? I have no idea, although open source audio/video players can probably rock whatever content you desire. That’s not really the problem, though. iTunes’ expiration is really tied to its still working access to the store and limited cloud features. When those go, the music player will still work – you just won’t be able to buy music like you once did.
Oh, and by the way, the classic iPod is dead. A moment of silence please.
– Nathan