Sep-2025 | Tagged as music
Scanning headlines yesterday and I stumbled across this one, “Taylor Swift’s new album is reviving iTunes like it’s 2009”. The short version is that the iTunes Store is offering exclusive version of Taylor Swift’s upcoming album, “The Life of a Showgirl”. This is in addition to the retail exclusive for Target (in the US) and various other marketing pushes.
While I’m sure it’ll be all but impossible to not come across something tied to the album on it’s release on 03-Oct-2025, it was damn near impossible to find the actual iTunes Store.
A few years back, Apple retired the actual iTunes Store app and moved it’s component pieces to the TV, Music, Podcast, and Books apps. It was irritating at the time, but it did make sense. The “everything store” approach meant that you typically only saw the more widely accepted content and you had to go hunting for anything remotely niche or specialized.
Having movies and TV in the TV app made it easier to see recommendations just for you. Or to dig into a genre–like sci-fi—and find that hidden gem you were looking for. The same holds true for books, podcasts, and music. This—of course—doesn’t speak to the user experience challenges in any of these apps. It’s the idea that is sound. The implementation…needs work.
That said, despite being an Apple Music user, I couldn’t seem to remember any mention of “the store”. It’s one of the top menu items in the TV app, alongside Home, Apple TV+, and my Library.
Hmmm…looking at the Music app and I cannot find the store.
I Googled it. Seriously, at this point I was so curious I had to search for the store. The top result is this page, “iTunes is going places.” This page discusses the split of the store into the various pieces and the call to action is to download the latest OS on Mac and to “Open the iTunes Store” on iOS. Clicking that link on iOS sends you to the Music app to either the last page you were on or the home section. 🤦
It turns out that the store is still burying in the Music app. If you open a specific album, you can use the (…) button to pull up a context menu that has a “Show in iTunes Store” option.
Click that and you’ll be able to purchase the album…but don’t. Visit the artist’s site and buy a special edition vinyl or even a basic CD. Odds are they’ll get a larger percentage of the revenue and you’ll get an actual physical copy that isn’t subject to digital rights management software.
At the end of the day, the “store” doesn’t really exist and why should it? If you’re paying for an Apple Music subscription, you’re probably not going to buy a license to a specific album. If you’re purchasing music, it’ll be a in a physical format.
Given how most folks listen to music these days, this approach makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is the out-of-nowhere Taylor Swift exclusive for a dead purchasing channel. Will the next album launch have a Sears catalogue exclusive?!?