TvOS 26.4 Retires iTunes Movies App After Five Years of Limbo
What You Need to Know
- Apple consolidates iTunes Movies and TV Shows apps into Apple TV app on tvOS.
- ITunes was dismantled on macOS in 2019, splitting functions across Music, Podcasts, and TV.
- New Continuous Audio Connection option stabilizes audio with certain sound systems and receivers.
- Apple TV app now displays purchased content alongside streaming titles in single location.
The headline change in tvOS 26.4 Developer Beta 4 is not the bug fixes. It is Apple finally consolidating purchased movies and TV shows into the Apple TV app, retiring the standalone iTunes Movies and iTunes TV Shows apps that have lingered on the platform long after iTunes itself was broken up on Mac and iPhone.
For anyone who has used Apple TV hardware over the years, the iTunes apps always felt like artifacts from a different era. Apple dismantled iTunes on macOS back in 2019, splitting its functions across Music, Podcasts, and TV. The Apple TV app took over purchased video content on other platforms well before this change, making the tvOS holdouts increasingly awkward. Users who built libraries through iTunes purchases should find their content accessible in the same place, though the iTunes Wish List feature that some relied on for saving titles has also been removed separately.
Audio Gets More Attention Than Expected
The audio changes in this beta are worth reading carefully. Apple is adding a Continuous Audio Connection option under HDMI settings, designed to keep audio stable with certain sound systems and receivers. A separate fix addresses incorrect behavior when switching between formats like Dolby Atmos and stereo, which has been a real-world annoyance for anyone running a home theater setup.
Purchased content through the Apple TV app now sits alongside streaming titles, which raises the same question that came up when Apple TV purchases received 4K upgrades for some libraries: whether the visual and audio quality of older purchases actually matches what the hardware can deliver.
Beta 4 also includes general performance and stability improvements, which is standard language for a fourth developer build. At this stage in a beta cycle, the fixes tend to be narrower and the big structural changes, like the iTunes app removal, are usually already locked in. How the broader tvOS 26 release timeline plays out will determine when any of this reaches the general public.
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