Apple’s Music, TV, and Devices Apps Launch on the Microsoft Store in Preview

Apple has quietly released preview versions of its Apple Music and Apple TV apps for Windows (via Aggiornamenti Lumia). The two apps are now available to download on the Microsoft Store alongside a new Apple Devices app, which lets users sync music, movies, and TV shows to iPhones or iPads.

These three apps will eventually replace the Windows version of iTunes, which Apple previously brought to the Windows 10 Microsoft Store along with iCloud for Windows. iTunes no longer exists on macOS, but Apple has been maintaining the Windows version until today. The company also made Apple Music and its Apple TV app available on the web as an alternative.

Even though the Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Devices apps for Windows are still in preview, they seem to work as expected. You’ll need to be running Windows 11 version 22621.0 higher to download them, though be aware that the three apps are currently not compatible with Windows on ARM devices (that’s not the case with iTunes).

When launching the new apps for the first time, users will be warned that iTunes for Windows will stop working. If you really want to keep using iTunes on Windows 11, you’ll need to uninstall the preview apps first.

Yesterday, an eagle-eyed Twitter user has spotted references to “reality OS” and “xrOS” in the code of the Apple Devices app (via MacRumors). According to a previous report from Bloomberg, “xrOS” is the name of the software that will power Apple’s upcoming mixed-reality headset, which the company may officially announce in spring 2023.

iTunes for Windows, an app Steve Jobs once described as “giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell,” remains one of the most popular free apps on the Microsoft Store alongside Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon’s Prime Video app for Windows. The app is actually quite clunky to use, so it’s good that Windows 11 users finally have standalone Music and TV apps to use instead.