Post-iTunes, Here's Why the Apple MacOS Catalina Warning Is Vital For DJs

Apple announced the end of iTunes earlier this year; the classic music and video app was to be replaced by Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and Apple TV, but now that the Catalina operating system has been rolled out with the changes, the company is warning DJs not to adopt.

For the average user, existing iTunes files will be automatically sorted into one of three new apps. The problem for DJs is that Catalina does not save XML data, which is to say, the organizational metadata that allows DJs to place individual songs in specific setlists and genre folders.

Many DJs import these setlists directly into digital DJ software such as Traktor and Rekordbox, so the new update renders hours of sorting work useless, leaving their vast collections of music completely disorganized.

Apple is aware of the problem and currently working on a fix; meanwhile, the company has warned DJs not to update to Catalina until the patch update.

DJs of all leves are affected by the misstep, including A-Trak and Dani Deahl, the latter of whom wrote about the issue for The Verge. 

See some of the tweets below.

The one thing I need to check is whether the path of music files will change.
Serato, Traktor, Rekordbox all point to file paths that were like Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/...
I wonder if that is going to change and mess things up for those programs.

— Little Louie Vegan (@atrak) June 4, 2019

So uh, if you're a DJ and have put tons of time into sorting music in your iTunes playlists for whatever software you use

...maybe don't upgrade to Catalina just yethttps://t.co/SK4MuxsrHW

— Dani Deahl (@danideahl) October 7, 2019

DJs who use iTunes for file mgmt don’t upgrade to Catalina until Apple resolves this ?? As of now there is no XML support on the new Mac OS meaning no rekordbox, traktor or serato -- https://t.co/gRsUV8I7Yl

— athena (@athenakoumis) October 8, 2019