iTunes Store

May 1, 2008: The iTunes Store takes a gigantic step toward cinematic relevancy, selling new movies on the day of their DVD releases for the very first time.

“We’re thrilled to bring iTunes Store customers new films for purchase day-and-date with the DVD release,” says Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes, in a press release. “We think movie fans will love being able to buy their favorites from major and independent studios.”

Movies out that week include Cloverfield, Juno, Alvin and the Chipmunks and American Gangster.

February 23, 2010: The iTunes Store officially passes the 10 billion music downloads mark, reaching a major milestone. The 10 billionth purchase? “Guess Things Happen That Way” by Johnny Cash.

The buyer of the song in question is Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia. As part of a “Countdown to 10 Billion Songs” promotion by Apple, Sulcer wins a massive $10,000 iTunes Store gift card — and receives a personal phone call from Steve Jobs for good measure!

The official System Status page for all Apple’s services  shows that three of the most important ones are having problems The iOS App Store, the Mac App Store and the iTunes Store are all affected.

Update: Full service has been restored.

The first wave of AirPlay 2 enabled TVs are already here.

After revealing at CES 2019 that some of its new TVs would ship with an iTunes Store app and AirPlay 2 support, Samsung announced today that its QLED TVs are shipping out now. Sharing video from your iPhone to the big screen just got a whole lot easier.

In an attempt to prevent fraudulent purchases from the iTunes Store, Apple has begun giving each iOS device a “trust score.” Exactly how this is computed isn’t known, but one of the factors is how many phone calls and emails are sent and received by the phone or tablet.

Despite the laudable goal of preventing fraud, an iPhone trust score is something likely to raise the hackles of privacy advocates. Still, Apple promises that it’s not tracking its users.

Purchased digital content has been around since before the launch of the iTunes Store back in 2003, but things were much different then. Devices weren’t constantly connected, and streaming wasn’t the primary way to access your “purchased” (or subscription) content, and most things came in the form of physical media (VHS tapes, DVDs, CDs, or 8-Tracks). Now that things are streamed, stored in the cloud, and available across all our devices, digital content ownership is much more complicated than simply buying a movie, book, or album and having it indefinitely.

iTunes and the App Store are two of the best online stores for buying digital content like movies and books. They’re also really good at getting you (the customer) to spend money. CheapCharts for iOS is the perfect companion to the App Store and iTunes Store, helping you get apps and digital content at the best price possible.

iTunes is finally available to download from the Microsoft Store for the first time.

The release makes it possible for Windows 10 S users, who cannot install applications obtained from third-party sources, to get their hands on Apple’s popular entertainment platform. This version of iTunes is exactly the same as the one available through Apple’s website.

iTunes will drop support for the “obsolete” first-generation Apple TV in May, Apple has confirmed.

Windows XP and Windows Vista are also being pushed out. Apple says that “security changes” will make these older products incompatible with the iTunes Store.

Apple has started rolling out 4K content to iTunes users, just as it promised it would do at this week’s Apple media event.

Although the fifth generation Apple TV 4K won’t actually arrive with customers until next week, the new 4K content — including both movies and TV shows — is viewable in all its glory on the newer 4K and 5K iMacs.

Apple has reportedly signed its first major music streaming deal since launching Apple Music in 2015.

Sources “familiar with the matter” say it has signed a new, cut-rate agreement with Warner Music Group, and is on the verge of reaching a similar deal with Sony Music Entertainment.

The launch of Apple’s new HomePod speaker isn’t slated until the very end of 2017, but after digging into the software that powers the new device, one developer has revealed a number of features fans can expect.

Notorious iOS sleuth Steve Troughton Smith has done some serious research into HomePod and discovered that it’s basically like another iOS device only it doesn’t have a big screen. That could open HomePod up to some exciting capabilities in the future.

Apple has begun accepting donations to the American Red Cross for Hurricane Matthew relief. You can donate between $5 and $200 using the iTunes app for Mac and PC, or via the App Store and iTunes Store apps on your iOS device.

Twenty years after it was first released to the public, Apple has finally confirmed that its WebObjects Java-based web application framework is dead — at least as far as official Apple updates are concerned.

Never heard of WebObjects? You’re probably not alone, but back in the 1990s it was considered a breakthrough product, was one that Steve Jobs was incredibly high on, and officially came over to Apple as part of the historic deal to acquire Jobs’ former company NeXT. Even today, aspects of WebObjects are used to power its online Apple Store and iTunes Store.

The iTunes Store turns 13 year old today, having originally opened its virtual doors on April 28, 2003 — back when 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” was riding high in the music charts, Anger Management and Bulletproof Monk were in theaters, and Saddam Hussein had just been ousted from power.

Who could’ve guessed that, years later, it would become the largest music vendor in the world, with well over 25 billion songs sold worldwide? Steve Jobs, that’s who!

Check out Jobs’ original unveiling of what was originally called the iTunes Music Store below.

Let’s face it – not all of us want every purchase we complete via the iTunes or App stores available to anyone who uses our iPhone, iPad, or Macbook. Some things just need to remain, well, private.

Luckily, it’s pretty easy to hide the evidence from unauthorized users via a quick trip to the iTunes app on your Mac or PC.

Whether you wanted it or not, U2’s new album is in the purchased section of your iTunes account.

Apple inked a $100 million deal with its favorite band to put Songs of Innocence in the hands of over 500 million iTunes users, and now the album has seen over two million downloads as a result—or about 0.4% of the iTunes Store’s user base.

Apple has launched a new service called iTunes Pass in several countries, including Japan, Brazil and China.

The service lets customers buy iTunes Store credit from brick-and-mortar Apple retail stores — only using Passbook, rather than the physical gift cards most commonly used. The service appears to work by letting users add a new iTunes Pass inside the Passbook app, which they can then present at their local Apple Store. The user then states how much money they would like to turn into iTunes Store credit, and this is instantly transferred to their account.

We’ve been seeing reports on Twitter of the iTunes Store not working, and it does indeed seem that Apple’s cloud servers are acting up. Both the App Store and iTunes Store are having trouble loading for a lot of people.

Let’s be honest, searching in the iTunes Store sucks, especially on the desktop. It’s often slow, and the results are difficult to navigate. Apple has tried to simplify things by displaying one result at a time in the App Store on iOS, but that approach also means that it can take longer to find the specific app you want in a sea of knockoffs.

A new web tool called “fnd” makes it easier to quickly search and navigate not just the App Store, but the iTunes Store in general.

Apple has begun giving away free content today via the App Store app for iPhone. Its first giveaway is for Color Zen, “a new and addictive kind of puzzle game” for iOS which is available free for a limited time “exclusively for Apple Store app users.”

Apple seeded a new Apple TV beta to registered developers on Monday, and there were a couple of new features that the Cupertino company did not mention in its release notes. One of those features is a new, one-tap setup option for those with iOS devices, and the other is the ability to purchase music from the iTunes Store.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak famously slammed the one-minute teaser for Ashton Kutcher’s Steve Jobs biopic and its script back in January, but that doesn’t mean he has a hatred for JOBS before he’s even seen it. In fact, Woz says he’s open to it as long as it’s entertaining and inspirational, and accurately portrays what really happened during the early days of Apple.

But he’s concerned the movie will depict Steve Jobs as a saint who was immune to failure.

The iTunes Store celebrates its tenth anniversary this month, and Apple is marking the occasion with a new promotion called “A Decade of iTunes.” iTunes users can enjoy a timeline that recognizes key moments throughout the store’s history, as well as a look back at ten year’s worth of chart-topping tracks and albums.

Apple has today announced that its iTunes Store has set yet another record as it surpasses more than 25 billion songs sold. The 25 billionth song to be downloaded was “Monkey Drums” by Chase Buch, and it was purchased by Phillip Lüpke from Germany, who will receive a €10,000 iTunes Gift Card from Apple.