To paraphrase Steve Jobs, Apple fans stuck in Windows hell might soon be getting another glass of ice water. A new job listing spotted by neowin suggests that Apple is looking to build versions of Apple TV and Apple Music for Windows 10 and possibly even Xbox One. But don’t be fooled: If Apple really cared about Windows, we would’ve been hearing about this in 2017, not late 2019.
The LinkedIn post for a “creative” Senior Software Engineer calls for a candidate with “strong skills in the areas of application design, solid API design principles and a strong understanding of customer and workflow issues” who has “a history of shipping large volume consumer product successfully.” That and the fact that you’d be working for the Apple Media Apps team makes it pretty clear that Apple is working on versions of its Apple TV and Apple Music apps for Windows 10. The listing also says knowledge of UWP is a plus, so that could mean Xbox is in line for Apple apps, too.
Oddly enough, Windows represents the last vestige of iTunes after Apple split up the media behemoth into disparate parts in macOS Catalina. So it’s only logical that Apple would replace it with new version that mirror those on the Mac.
The only question I have is: Why now? Apple has already released versons of the Apple TV app for Roku, Fire TV, and smart TVs from Samsung and LG, but if you want to watch The Morning Show on your PC, you’ll need to visit tv.apple.com. If Apple was serious about its Windows apps, it would have released new apps in October when Catalina landed, not months later. Heck, the iTunes for Windows app hasn’t even been updated since March.
Basically, Apple cares as much about Windows as it does Android, which is so say not at all. Back in 2015—more than four years ago—another Apple job listing was seeking a software engineer “to help bring exciting new mobile products to the Android platform.” Not surprisingly, that position yielded no fruit. There isn’t even an Apple TV app for Android phones.
So, if you’re a PC user waiting for the next Apple apps to make their way to Windows, I wouldn’t hold my breath. If Apple is only just now starting to look for a suitable candidate, the release roadmap is likely more than a year away, and even then, it might not ever come to be.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.