Apple is closing iTunes in the coming months, but don’t panic: the change means less than it sounds, your music is safe and iTunes isn’t really going away for good.

What’s happening?

This autumn, Apple will release the latest version of Mac OS, 10.15 Catalina, named after an island off the coast of Los Angeles. The update will come with a raft of changes to Mac apps, including the long-awaited demise of iTunes.

The app’s core features will be split out over three new apps – Music, Podcasts and TV – as well as a few older ones. Music will continue to be the home of users’ downloaded music libraries, as well as how they listen to music streamed from the Apple Music service; Podcasts will control which podcasts they’re subscribed to and offer access to the Apple Podcast directory (as well as a snazzy new AI-powered transcription service that lets listeners search podcasts by content for the first time); and TV will host all the TV shows and films users have downloaded.

Some changes are still unclear but it seems likely that audiobooks will be moved to the Books app, as they have been on iOS, and that some management of iOS apps will be handled in the Mac App Store app.

But how will I sync my iPod?

All sync services will now be handled in the Finder: when you plug in an iPod or iPhone, simply click on the Finder icon in the dock to see a new option under Devices where all the management of a phone or iPad will now occur.

An iPhone syncing in Finder. Photograph: Apple

What about iTunes for Windows?

Good news (or bad, depending on your love for the venerable app): iTunes for Windows is going nowhere. iPhone and iPod users who still want to sync their devices with a Windows computer can carry on doing it the same way they always have.

While we’re on it, other aspects of iTunes are sticking around too: the iTunes Store is remaining the iTunes Store, and you’ll still be able to buy songs, films and TV shows to download and keep from there.

Why is this happening?

The short answer is that iTunes has been due a rewrite for years. As Apple vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, joked on Monday, the app now does so much that it’s almost a mini-operating system in its own right. Splitting the app up should help it load faster, run more smoothly and be better focused on individual tasks.

Just as important is the launch of Apple’s TV+ service, which will see the company selling a Netflix-style streaming subscription for the first time. Given the amount of money at stake (it has signed up Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and Jennifer Aniston, to name just three), Apple needed to have a standalone TV app ready for the launch, rather than hide it deep in a sub-menu of an app built for an entirely different type of media.