Apple reportedly shuts down one of its most popular services. Users are not going to like it

The tech giant might be shutting down its iTunes Store music downloads according to reports. The move would be made to compete with streaming platforms like Spotify.

The tech company has realized that streaming is the best way to make money via subscriptions. Daily Mail reported that the alleged face out will occur on March 31, 2019.

Industry insiders have claimed that a phase-out of the iTunes Store music downloads service is in the works. But Apple has since denied the claims, saying that they have no immediate plans to shut down the service.

The firm, however, admitted it would stop taking new iTunes LP submissions. But speculations were that this announcement was the beginning of a more widespread shut down of downloads in the future.

The firm's own streaming service, Apple Music, has had great popularity with around 40 million paid subscribers. Digital Music News sources shared that users would be given 'ample warning' of the upcoming phase-out.

The source also revealed that existing music downloads would always work on all Apple devices and the iTunes platform. An Apple Music executive, Jimmy Iovine, had previously confirmed that music downloads would be terminated.

'It's clear that streaming is the future. Apple wants to push people to take out subscriptions.'

Anonymous Metro source, March 6, 2018

But at the time he didn’t give an exact date. 'If I'm honest, it's when people stop buying. It's very simple,' Iovine told BBC. In March 2018, an internal e-mail, titled 'The End of iTunes LPs' was leaked to the Metro.

The email was sent two weeks ago from an address at 'The iTunes Store,' and was signed by 'The Apple Music Team.' It said that Apple would no longer accept new submissions of iTunes LPs after March 2018.

Existing LPs were said to be deprecated from the store during the remainder of 2018. The email stated that customers who had previously purchased an album containing an iTunes LP would still be able to download the additional content using iTunes Match.

At the same time, Apple has confirmed to the tech site, The Verge, that existing LPs would continue to be available.

Mark Mulligan, an analyst at MIDiA Research and music industry blogger, shared that the announcement was 'potential evidence' of Apple's future plans. He reiterated that this was a sign that Apple would turn off its download store at some point.

Mulligan stated that there was no future for the iTunes music store.