1. iTunes started out as a music player. The iTunes Music Store came later. You can debate whether or not Steve was planning the iTunes Music Store from the beginning, but that's neither here nor there.
2. iTunes, at least in the beginning, was just a wrapper around the QuickTime framework.
"2. iTunes, at least in the beginning, was just a wrapper around the QuickTime framework."
There's more to it than that, but this touches on something; I really wish that something akin to QuickTime was available cross-platform. Yeah, it's crufty and strange warts that reveal Ugly Things are all over the place, but man, having a good AV API would make a lot of things better.
ffmpeg is a very impressive achievement, but it's not the same thing.
2. iTunes, at least in the beginning, was just a wrapper around the QuickTime framework.