• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, May 12, 2017

Windows users will soon have access to the iTunes app, among other major changes yet to come.

Marking an unexpected alliance with Apple, Microsoft made the announcement at its developer conference in Seattle on Thursday. Part of what it’s calling a Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, the changes are expected later.

Windows users can expect what Microsoft promises will be “the complete” iTunes experience, including Apple Music and the iTunes Store, as well as support for iPhone and other Apple devices.

By Microsoft’s reckoning, Windows 10 is now used on more than 500 million devices. Yet embracing Apple’s music and video platform is clearly a response to Microsoft's falling stature.

For the first time, Android recently bested Windows as the world’s most popular operating system, according to findings from Web analytics firm StatCounter.

“It marks the end of Microsoft’s leadership worldwide of the OS market, which it has held since the 1980s,” Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter, noted in a recent report.

Considering the shift, Cullen cited the growth of smartphones, faster wireless Web speeds, a decline in the sales of traditional PCs, and the impact of Asia on the global market.

In March, Android topped the worldwide OS Internet usage market share with 37.93%, which put it marginally ahead of Windows (37.91%) for the first time.

To its credit, Windows still dominates the worldwide operating system desktop market for PCs and laptops with an 84% Web usage share in March.

Moving forward, Cullen suggests: “It will be difficult for Microsoft to make inroads in mobile, but the next paradigm shift might give it the opportunity to regain dominance. That could be in Augmented Reality, AI, Voice or Continuum (a product that aims to replace a desktop and smartphone with a single Microsoft-powered phone).”

In North America, Windows (all versions) maintained its lead across all platforms with 39.5% share in March -- followed by iOS (25.7%) and Android (21.2%).