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

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.

itunes wishlist ios removed
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.

ios 17 2 itunes app
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.

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Top Rated Comments

markfc Avatar
15 months ago
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.
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)
norbinhouston Avatar
15 months ago
Why is Apple throwing everything into the AppleTV app? They are making it into the new old version of iTunes?
Score: 36 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacProPIMP Avatar
15 months ago
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.
Score: 31 Votes (Like | Disagree)
HobeSoundDarryl Avatar
15 months ago

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."
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Roy G Biv Avatar
15 months ago
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.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BoxOfSnoo Avatar
15 months ago
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.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)