It was a good run for software given how rapidly things evolve faster than human wisdom but the writing was on the wall since iOS had already separated iTunes’ functions into three apps.
My brother has a very intriguing and personal take on iTunes’ precursor from his time with Apple’s marketing department. Nice to know that the G4’s overhyped Alti-Vec was good for something while the processor’s clock speed stayed constipated at 500 Mhz.
For me, I instantly recognized iTunes’ original DNA the day Jobs announced it, Apple acquired and modified SoundJam. I knew because I bought a copy at NYC MacWorld in 2000, back in the day when ripping CDs was the primary source of MP3s for most people. The visualizer was impressive yet I wanted something better to convert my modest music collection (then) and transfer it to the used Diamond Rio 150 I bought from an ex-coworker. Before SoundJam, the Mac’s options were pretty clunky and very mediocre ports of Windows software, hence the Mac OS couldn’t polish a turd.
iTunes carried on as it accumulated more and more functions: a download store, podcast subscriptions, video playback, social media (died quickly) and streaming. I recall reading self-proclaimed pundits claiming the software had become something held together with duct tape and two-by-fours. If true, it ran pretty well compared to stuff I would agree on this criticism being more accurate with (MS Word in the Nineties readily comes to mind).