Yup. iTunes has been a central hub ever since the iPod. Once they had the syncing work there, it made a certain amount of sense to use it for all iDevices and i

Yup. iTunes has been a central hub ever since the iPod. Once they had the syncing work there, it made a certain amount of sense to use it for all iDevices and interaction with Apple's media, as it was available on both Windows and macOS. It's been a painful and unhappy evolution, in my experience (and those of many others from what I've read), however.