Apple to Discontinue Support for the iTunes Movie Trailers App and Roll into TV App

As Apple prepares to offer movie trailers only within its flagship TV app, the company has decided to discontinue support for its long-running iTunes Movie Trailers app.

Transition to the TV App

Some Apple TV customers in the United States have reported noticing a new area in the TV app titled “Watch the Latest Trailers,” with a main selection card showing the old iTunes Movie Trailers logo but titled “Movie & TV Trailers.” The part in question may be accessed by selecting “Watch the Latest Trailers.”

It appears that Apple has not yet finished the rollout of the merged TV and iTunes Movie Trailers apps because the new section in the TV app is not yet visible to users in the United Kingdom and possibly in other regions as well. Additionally, when users in the United Kingdom tap the banner in the original iTunes Movie Trailers app, they are taken back to the app, suggesting that Apple has not yet finished the rollout of the merge.

The End of iTunes Movie Trailers App

In any case, it would appear that the end is near for the iTunes Movie Trailers app, which has not received any updates in the past five years. Users of the iPhone and iPad were given convenient access to Apple’s collection of movie trailers after the company released a free app for iOS in October 2011 in the United States. The removal of the app is most likely a step in Apple’s plan to progressively phase out the iTunes brand and consolidate all of its video content under a single roof, which is also part of the strategy.

Future of iTunes Movie Trailers Website

It is not exactly apparent what this implies for Apple’s iTunes Movie Trailers website, which is still sporting some obsolete graphical user interface features and does not at all correspond with Apple’s current online design.

Since the late 1990s, the website has been hosted on apple.com. Its original name was “Quicktime Movie Trailers,” and its purpose was to demonstrate Apple’s QuickTime software and the company’s ability to host downloadable movie trailers online at high resolution (higher than what many Hollywood movie studios were able to achieve) in the days before YouTube.