Apple's forgotten Trailers app is on its way out
The iTunes Movie Trailers app for iPhone is still on the App Store, but Apple is transitioning away from it toward having the TV app include everything in one place.
Apple's iTunes Movie Trailers app still exists
Movie trailers were once important to Apple for how it showed off the superiority of video on Macs, most notably with "Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace" in 1999. But since then, Apple has ceased to be the place to go to see new trailers, and has been usurped for this by YouTube.
It's not, though, as if Apple lavished attention on its iTunes Movie Trailers app. Since it was launched in 2012, it has had a total of 16 updates -- most of which were minor. Its latest update was in 2018, when Apple released version 1.4.4 with the new inclusion of an Apple Watch icon.
Today the iOS app is headlined by a banner image saying that "Apple TV app is the new home of iTunes Movie Trailers." The banner is in a carousel that rotates to a new message every few seconds -- but each image is the same.
At present, the banner can be tapped and it does react but goes to a blank screen and then snaps back like an elastic band.
It's clearly intended to take users to the iOS TV app, and that app is beginning to show signs of being ready for them. While it isn't working, and is only in the US at present, the TV app does now contain a section for trailers.
Apple has not commented and as yet there is no way to know when this rather clunky rolling out of a new feature to the Apple TV app, will take to reach all users.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Just what I want to do.
Sit and watch a bunch of trailers for movies I'd never want to see.
I guess if you can't afford a streaming service…
I love movies. Trailers allows me to review most (if not all) of the smaller indy films that come out. I am amazed that there are way more than one new movie per day released in the US (something like nearly 500 per year).
What is refreshing about the trailer program is that there’s no bullshit ads or pop-ups. The interface is clean, simple and easy to use, try it before it disappears. You can watch a trailer at your leisure and there is no garbage in between you and the trailer, well course other than the trailer itself.
It would be good to have a simpler filtering system. It's nice to be able to list all movies by year but sort by popularity/rating/release date and be able to filter out movies below a certain rating.
For going on a trip that is offline like a flight, you could search all movies in the last 10 years above 7/10, sort by popularity, tap a bunch of them, rent all, and store on iPad and you'd have decent movies to watch in a few minutes.
Potentially it could play the trailers back to back with a skip option.
Like an advanced search > start year, end year, above rating, sort by popularity/rating/release date, Genre (multiple). It would return a list of results and there can be a button to play trailers so you could sit through them in order and favorite/wishlist the ones you like or skip/ignore.