Apple to Sunset iTunes Movie Trailers App, Roll into TV App

[MacRumors]

Apple is sunsetting its long-running iTunes Movie Trailers app as it begins hosting movie trailers exclusively in the company's flagship TV app, MacRumors can report.

Hints of Apple's plan first emerged on August 9, when MacRumors discovered a non-linked banner on the iTunes Movie Trailers website that reads "Apple TV app is the new home of iTunes Movie Trailers." The same banner has since started showing up on both of Apple's iOS and tvOS apps of the same name.

Then last night, some Apple TV users in the United States reported seeing a new section in the TV app titled "Watch the Latest Trailers," with a main selection card showing the original iTunes Movie Trailers logo, but titled "Movie & TV Trailers."

The new section in the TV app is not yet showing for users in the United Kingdom, and possibly elsewhere, and when iPhone and iPad users in the U.K. tap the banner in the original iTunes Movie Trailers app they are bounced back to the app, suggesting Apple has not yet completed its rollout of the merge.

Image credit: Reddit user AndreaCicca​

Regardless, the writing appears to be on the wall for the iTunes Movie Trailers app, which hasn't been updated in five years. The free app was launched on iOS in October 2011 in the U.S., offering iPhone and iPad users easy access to Apple's library of movie trailers. Closing the app is likely part of Apple's strategy to gradually wind down the iTunes branding and bring all of its video content under the same umbrella.

It's not entirely clear what this means for Apple's iTunes Movie Trailers website, which is still sporting some archaic interface elements that don't at all align with Apple's modern web design.

The site has been hosted on apple.com since the late 1990s and was originally titled "Quicktime Movie Trailers," to showcase Apple's QuickTime software and its ability to host downloadable movie trailers online at high resolution – higher than many Hollywood movie studios could achieve – in the days before YouTube.

Article Link: Apple to Sunset iTunes Movie Trailers App, Roll into TV App

 

[jyw104]

Until this post, I honestly didn't even know it was still around, so I guess that says it all...

 

[DMG35]

I love the trailers app. But I'm also weird and love movie trailers....

 

[TechnoMonk]

What a scam, Tim Apple needs to go.

/s

 

[rgeneral]

What a scam, Tim Apple needs to go.

/s

Go to the movies ?

 

[CJM]

Anyone else used to watch trailers on the Apple website? Those were the days. Trying to load a tiny 4:3 video of the Lord of the Rings on dial up.

 

[Shirasaki]

One of many steps to slowly move away from iTunes in general.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

One of many steps to slowly move away from iTunes in general.

Not going to happen. Hundreds of millions of people own iTunes music, movies and TV shows, and without workarounds you can’t just dump them on a USB drive and play them from any other device.

Plus it’s still a source of services revenue, regardless of the market size.

 

[contacos]

Anyone else used to watch trailers on the Apple website? Those were the days. Trying to load a tiny 4:3 video of the Lord of the Rings on dial up.

Yes it was like let me pick the smallest available quality to not have it buffer for 30 minutes

 

[CarAnalogy]

Great more stuff shoved into the TV app, the only place to watch purchased iTunes videos.

There really needs to be a Movies Anywhere for TV shows.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Not going to happen. Hundreds of millions of people own iTunes music, movies and TV shows, and without workarounds you can’t just dump them on a USB drive and play them from any other device.

Plus it’s still a source of services revenue, regardless of the market size.

Apple doesn’t care that people paid them money for a license to watch a video. They want advertising money. They want subscription money. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to just play a video file I purchased from them without having to use their ad platform to do it.

Edit: surprised to see so many people who purchased content in itunes and are pleased with watching it in the tv app. That’s the only reason to downvote, right? Please feel free to explain why you disagree.

 

[bluecoast]

Anyone else used to watch trailers on the Apple website? Those were the days. Trying to load a tiny 4:3 video of the Lord of the Rings on dial up.

I remember seeing a tiny 2 inch sized very lossy video of a trailer on a CRT monitor (on PC) in 1999. It felt so exciting.

 

[AppleTO]

I didn’t even realize this existed to begin with.

 

[bluecoast]

Slightly off topic - I wonder how long iTunes is going to stay around?

Both as a brand as as the actual service.

I mean it looks embarrassingly old in the Music app now.

Surely it makes sense for Apple to give it its own app on all Apple platforms so that Music can move forward?

Music does seem to be a little bit of a prisoner of the past still:

i.e. the way it has to host iTunes Music Store, your library and integrate downloaded music and iTunes music into your Apple Music streaming library.

This is a very unApple thing - they're usually ruthless about killing 'legacy' services/features.

 

[Christoffee]

Last updated 5 years ago.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Last updated 5 years ago.

This just shows another bit of the Apple App Store bias. Apple forces all developers to update their app/game every two years (even if it doesn't need to be) or else their app/game gets pulled from the store, yet Apple doesn't have to do that.

God we need sideloading yesterday.

EDIT: Dislike me all you want but you know I'm right about double standards in the Apple App Store. After all Apple blocks third parties from tracking you and selling your data to advertisers while they continue to do it to you with no way to turn it off. Besides, sideloading's coming whether you want it to or not. The EU and Japan already mandated it for next year.

 

[iSwift5]

Love the website’s look. The design that made me fall in love with Apple

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Slightly off topic - I wonder how long iTunes is going to stay around?

Both as a brand as as the actual service.

I mean it looks embarrassingly old in the Music app now.

Surely it makes sense for Apple to give it its own app on all Apple platforms so that Music can move forward?

Music does seem to be a little bit of a prisoner of the past still:

i.e. the way it has to host iTunes Music Store, your library and integrate downloaded music and iTunes music into your Apple Music streaming library.

This is a very unApple thing - they're usually ruthless about killing 'legacy' services/features.

They're not gonna kill the iTunes Store. iTunes is still the only place to buy music digitally, and they spent too long getting all the record labels and estates to host their music onto iTunes. Remember in November 2010 when there was a massive frenzy that Apple got the entire Beatles catalog on iTunes, which at the time was considered impossible. It was such a big thing that they had billboards all across the US and UK announcing "Yes! We finally did it! We actually got the Beatles!"

They may rebrand the iTunes Store as the Apple Music Store, but they're not gonna get rid of the store. It would be a stupid move to do that and be a loss of a revenue stream.

 

[gk_brown]

Not going to happen. Hundreds of millions of people own iTunes music, movies and TV shows, and without workarounds you can’t just dump them on a USB drive and play them from any other device.

Plus it’s still a source of services revenue, regardless of the market size.

I use it fairly often. I don't subscribe to any audio streaming service, but I do still occasionally buy music.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

I use it fairly often. I don't subscribe to any audio streaming service, but I do still occasionally buy music.

Yeah we can actually use our phones as iPods like we used to. We got the storage to just have our primary music libraries on our phones wherever we go. (If only we had headphone jacks for stronger headphones lmao)

Let's not forget how volatile music streaming services are with music leaving the platforms constantly due to licensing troubles between different estates. How many times have you gone onto Spotify, search for a song you love, but can't play it as it's greyed out due to Spotify losing the license for that artist?

 

[hagar]

Never used the app but it was comforting knowing the app was there.

I never understood why they kept it around after it was no longer needed to showcase the technical marvel that was QuickTime. Can’t imagine it ever had a huge user base as it felt so isolated. No links to showtimes, it listed movies that were not in cinemas around here for a long time, no options to make lists, …

 

[darngooddesign]

Go to the movies ?

Do you know what /s means?

 

[darngooddesign]

Slightly off topic - I wonder how long iTunes is going to stay around?

Both as a brand as as the actual service.

I mean it looks embarrassingly old in the Music app now

Surely it makes sense for Apple to give it its own app on all Apple platforms so that Music can move forward?

Music does seem to be a little bit of a prisoner of the past still:

i.e. the way it has to host iTunes Music Store, your library and integrate downloaded music and iTunes music into your Apple Music streaming library.

This is a very unApple thing - they're usually ruthless about killing 'legacy' services/features.

I have zero issues with the integration of streaming Apple music and iTunes music in my library. Works flawlessly for me including downloaded songs as well. Besides, iTunes has a lot of music which isn’t available in Apple Music.

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

They may rebrand the iTunes Store as the Apple Music Store, but they're not gonna get rid of the store. It would be a stupid move to do that and be a loss of a revenue stream.

To be fair I think that’s what people mean when they say Apple is gonna “get rid” of iTunes

Or at least I hope that’s what they mean

 

[orbital~debris]

The site has been hosted on apple.com since the late 1990s and was originally titled "Quicktime Movie Trailers," to showcase Apple's QuickTime software and its ability to host downloadable movie trailers online at high resolution – higher than many Hollywood movie studios could achieve – in the days before YouTube.

Remember the QuickTime Movie Trailers page being one of my favourite places to visit on the World Wide Web 🤩🎬

Downloading trailers into the QuickTime Player – sloowwwly – and eventually being able to watch them: very exciting! The Phantom Menace trailer was an event.