iOS 17.2 and tvOS 17.2 Kill TV Show and Movie Wishlists With No Warning

[MacRumors]

With iOS 17.2, iPadOS 17.2, and tvOS 17.2, Apple removed the option to purchase TV shows and movies from the iTunes Store apps, redirecting customers to the Apple TV app instead. Unfortunately, Apple's move to consolidate purchasing and viewing in the Apple TV app has done away with wishlists, and customers who used the feature got no warning about their elimination.

On Reddit, Twitter, the MacRumors forums, and the Apple Support Community, customers are complaining about the change. From the MacRumors forums:

Removing the wish list is a really bad move by Apple. I had a bunch of movies I was working my way through. That list is just gone now. I won't be renting or buying anything from Apple TV any more. Bad move Apple.

In the iTunes Store app on the iPhone and iPad, and the separate iTunes TV Shows and iTunes Movies apps on the Apple TV, there were options to add TV shows and movies to a dedicated wishlist when browsing, which consumers used to save the content for later and watch for sales.

The wishlists did not transfer over to the Apple TV app with these updates, so some customers who had compiled long watch lists are unable to access those curated lists or copy them over to a new location. Some users are able to open up the iTunes Store app on iOS devices and tap on the hamburger button in the upper right corner to see their wishlists, but this does not appear to be working for everyone. Those who compiled lists on the Apple TV appear to have no way to access them. From Reddit:

I've looked on iOS, and my wishlist has completely disappeared. I've been building it for about 10 years, and it had a little over 400 movies on it. I wish Apple would've thought this through more before just springing such a drastic change on us.

In tvOS 17.2, iOS 17.2, and iPadOS 17.2, there is a "+" button that can be used for saving content for future watching, but this adds it to the Up Next feature, which can be rather more cluttered than a traditional wishlist.

With tvOS 17.2, Apple disabled the separate iTunes Movies and iTunes TV Shows apps during the beta testing process. The option to purchase TV shows and movies from the iTunes Store app on the iPhone and the iPad was removed at the time iOS 17.2 and iPadOS 17.2 were released through a server side update.

It is not clear if Apple will reimplement wishlists in some way given the number of upset customers, but it seems unlikely. There were similar complaints when Apple removed App Store wishlists way back with iOS 11, but that feature did not return.

Article Link: iOS 17.2 and tvOS 17.2 Kill TV Show and Movie Wishlists With No Warning

 

[markfc]

Time for a shake up at Apple. Tim needs to go. A clear lack of innovation and poor design choices of late.

Take the Car Play share implementation. Everytime the family want to use it they have to re-join. Why does t it remember them for every journey?

And FaceTime continuity camera for AppleTV is absolutely buggy garbage. I’d rather spend £99 on a dedicated camera that works 100%.

Also no way of clearing the viewing history of just one show? I’m trying to rewatch something and it’s really annoying as you have to rewind to the start of each episode and then they don’t automatically start the next one.

 

[boombashi]

Apple with the pikachu face when they find out anyone actually used that feature 😂

Actually, they won't care because if more than 10 people actually used that feature, they would have ported it over.

 

[norbinhouston]

Why is Apple throwing everything into the AppleTV app? They are making it into the new old version of iTunes?

 

[Roy G Biv]

Worse to me is the downgrade of using the TV app’s store to look for movies and discounts. They combined movies, TV shows, and content from 3rd-party apps.

 

[MacProPIMP]

You can still reach your wish list. Go to iTunes Store App, Music Store Tab. Wish list are still in upper right menu and shows everything including movies. But yes they should bring them into the TV App.

 

[vegetassj4]

Wishgate? Listgate? You're wishing/listing it wrong?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Why is Apple throwing everything into the AppleTV app? They are making it into the new old version of iTunes?

That's where the bulk of the push to rent or buy media and buy subscriptions is well established. Get more eyeballs in there in pursuit of more "services" revenue. When something doesn't seem to make much sense through our consumer lens, it's pretty much always about the 💰💰💰

 

[BoxOfSnoo]

I was able to find mine in what's left of the Store app... but they are pushing so hard to discourage ownership by lumping together everything in the Apple TV app. I want to buy a show, not stream it, and Apple used to be a decent option for that. Time to go back to DVDs and Blu-Ray.

 

[Poleri]

Or use CheapCharts...

 

[Lizzard899]

So many things are wrong with this ios 17.2 and their server end. For example Im currently having a issue with the icloud backup storage bug. My icloud backup storage was at 55mb monday then when I updated to ios 17.2 the storage keeps increasing everyday. I manually delete my texts and I know that from speaking MANY times with APPLE theyve told me it takes up to 4 days for the texts to delete on the SERVER end. Sometimes 180 days. I even had to buy more storage just to be safe. I refuse to call apple and have them fix it because Ive been told by MANY people on apple community page and others that eventually itll fix itself on the apple server end. I have 25 contacts, 1 photo 0 texts. Someone else mentioned to me yesterday on a different thread on macrumers that they experienced it too a few times in the past and that the server gets a lil buggy at times but itll magically fix itself eventually but if you call apple theyd fix it right away but Im not doing that. Its their issue on the server end so Im hoping itll fix itself. That or itll be fixed in a new ios 17.2.1 update perhaps. The other issue on ios 17.2 I noticed its under where it says NEXT BACKUP SIZE it doesnt show, it just says LOADING. Someone else said this is happening on their mac too ever since 17.2 came out. AND the toggle for messages on icloud doesnt turn on. Its frozen.

 

[zach-coleman]

I was able to find mine in what's left of the Store app... but they are pushing so hard to discourage ownership by lumping together everything in the Apple TV app. I want to buy a show, not stream it, and Apple used to be a decent option for that. Time to go back to DVDs and Blu-Ray.

It doesn't help that many movies don't have distribution outside of streaming at all. Apple's probably lumping these together because the business has been dwindling for a while. I know there are a few shows I wanted to buy that I found out got delisted randomly years ago with no fanfare.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I was able to find mine in what's left of the Store app... but they are pushing so hard to discourage ownership by lumping together everything in the Apple TV app. I want to buy a show, not stream it, and Apple used to be a decent option for that. Time to go back to DVDs and Blu-Ray.

Go back to DVDs & Blu Ray, learn to rip your own (you get to choose the quality, not a corp stranger) and render so you can enjoy your own media in the AppleTV Computers app- a tremendous utility for consumers of owned media collections without the endless marketing to buy/rent/subscribe to more. IMO: it's the far better app for media consumption. I just about NEVER open AppleTV app but use Computers app almost every day.

The used video disc market will generally beat the prices of the new digital video market... and rolling your own won't put you at the mercy of Studios suddenly deleting a movie or show. You'll also have a built-in backup copy should you suffer any storage catastrophe. If you like extras, you'll have them too. And you'll actually OWN instead of "lifetime* lease."

 

[benface]

Apple with the pikachu face when they find out anyone actually used that feature 😂

Actually, they won't care because if more than 10 people actually used that feature, they would have ported it over.

You are so out of touch… it’s awful.

 

[jz0309]

the Apple TV app sucks, that's all I have to say

 

[jz0309]

Go back to DVDs & Blu Ray, learn to rip your own (you get to choose the quality, not a corp stranger) and render so you can enjoy your own media in the AppleTV Computers app: tremendous utility for consumers of owned media collections without the endless marketing to buy/rent/subscribe to more. IMO: it's the far better app for media consumption. I just about NEVER open AppleTV app but use Computers app just about every day.

The used video disc market will generally beat the prices of the new digital market... and rolling your own won't put you at the mercy of Studios suddenly deleting a movie or show. You'll also have a built-in backup copy should you suffer any storage catastrophe. If you like extras, you'll have them too. And you'll actually OWN instead of "lifetime lease."

sure, I do the same, because the TV app doesn't recognize my ripped movies ... and then there are those who don't have a Mac, they're stuck ...

 

[rorschach]

The biggest problem I have with the Apple TV app is the utter lack of any functionality for managing your own library. No playlists or playlist folders. No way to sort anything. (Oddly, the Mac app has these last two features...) No way to add streaming content to my library for quick access (I have a few go-to sitcoms that I throw on when there's nothing else to watch; I'd love to have them in my library for quick access). No way to favorite things like in Music.

Also, let me hide all sports content. Please.

Anyway, for wishlist functionality, I've used CheapCharts for years. Has the added bonus of notifying you when things drop in price.

 

[scheinderrob]

Time for a shake up at Apple. Tim needs to go. A clear lack of innovation and poor design choices of late.

Take the Car Play share implementation. Everytime the family want to use it they have to re-join. Why does t it remember them for every journey?

And FaceTime continuity camera for AppleTV is absolutely buggy garbage. I’d rather spend £99 on a dedicated camera that works 100%.

Also no way of clearing the viewing history of just one show? I’m trying to rewatch something and it’s really annoying as you have to rewind to the start of each episode and then they don’t automatically start the next one.

the whole not doing layoffs thing was a huge mistake.

apple needs to clean house of their lousy engineers, management. maybe lets get rid of timmy himself.

 

[CarAnalogy]

It seems like at this point, the long delay that happens every single time the family sharing library is opened feels punitive. In this version they updated it with a message to say “this may take several minutes.”

Don’t put in a ****ing error message, fix the delay! There is no reason for it to take “several minutes” every single time.

Really sick of this “engagement” (a nastier euphemism I’ve never heard) corporate culture.

 

[erikkfi]

This kind of thing is why I steer clear of services like Apple Music and have no intention of intertwining my TV and movie viewing with Apple.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

The biggest problem I have with the Apple TV app is the utter lack of any functionality for managing your own library. No playlists or playlist folders. No way to sort anything. (Oddly, the Mac app has these last two features...) No way to add streaming content to my library for quick access (I have a few go-to sitcoms that I throw on when there's nothing else to watch; I'd love to have them in my library for quick access). No way to favorite things like in Music.

Also, let me hide all sports content. Please.

Anyway, for wishlist functionality, I've used CheapCharts for years. Has the added bonus of notifying you when things drop in price.

There are ways to do this, you just have to be creative... and use the Computers app instead of the AppleTV app. The former is the MUCH BETTER app for owned content. The AppleTV app has an extreme focus on extracting more revenue out of its users. IMO: that's what's eroding that app- too much push to further enrich Apple at the expense of user experience.

Apple USED to let the SHOW tag group serialized movies. For example, insert "James Bond" for all 2X Bond movies in the SHOW tag and you would have 1 line item called James Bond in the main list of movies. Click that to then see all of them (like menu and submenu functionality). Workaround: use GENRE for this. Create a Genre called James Bond (and Star Trek and Star Wars and Harry Potter) and then choose that genre when you want to quickly get to one of those movies. Tag the individual movie files GENRE with a single name that will group all of the sequels together. For example, Genre James Bond will present all of the James Bond movies when selected.

Download all iTunes Store purchased content to a local drive to sever the streaming dependency. Then you can use the Computers app for your own owned content instead of having to lean on the AppleTV app.

Take advantage of the TV Show sorting & organizing features to get your sitcoms organized under the TV Show tab in the Computers app. TV Show tags will get things in Show and then Season order.

Good tip: instead of using the Home Movies tag, make your Home Movies into a TV Show (tag) too, so you can get them into Year (Season) order, to make it easy to find the 201X video you call Christmas without having to hunt through several home movies you've also named Christmas. All of my very large collection of home movies are tagged as a "TV show" called Home Movies. Within that "TV Show," one can find a few decades worth of seasons (which is basically grouping home movies by year, even in date order (episode tags) within those years). Within those seasons, it's easy to find any given "episode" I want to watch.

Computers app lacks the promotional focus, so no pushes for rentals or purchases, subscriptions, sports content, etc. As some boys on a famous Life cereal commercial once pitched: try it, you'll like it (Hey Mikey).

 

[AlexESP]

Time for a shake up at Apple. Tim needs to go. A clear lack of innovation and poor design choices of late.

Take the Car Play share implementation. Everytime the family want to use it they have to re-join. Why does t it remember them for every journey?

And FaceTime continuity camera for AppleTV is absolutely buggy garbage. I’d rather spend £99 on a dedicated camera that works 100%.

Also no way of clearing the viewing history of just one show? I’m trying to rewatch something and it’s really annoying as you have to rewind to the start of each episode and then they don’t automatically start the next one.

These things already happened before Tim. Saying Apple doesn’t innovate and Tim needs to go because you had 2 UX issues seems like too much exaggeration to me.

 

[aaronhead14]

Wow, this is really bad news. I’m glad I haven’t updated iOS yet. I use the movies wish list literally every day. Guess I’m gonna have to move it over to some other list (a list that doesn’t show current prices, which is gonna be dumb). This is likely going to decrease my amount of movie purchases, because I won’t be daily checking prices anymore. Apple’s loss, I guess…

 

[iJulio]

Wish list has been replaced with watch next feature on Apple TV.

 

[McWetty]

5-6 years ago, they did the App Store Wishlist dirty too. Never came back…