Rest in peace, neglected iTunes Movie Trailer app and website
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I remember downloading the QuickTime trailer for Batman Begins and watching it over and over until the movie released. I didn't even realize their trailer site was still going.
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God damnit, I only just rediscovered that and started using it again.
Trying to watch movie trailers on YouTube is a nightmare of fake trailers, content borrowed by random unofficial people for ad revenue, and there’s no discoverability for indie movies like there was in the Apple site, which just lists everything coming out, and not just superhero movies.
Trying to watch movie trailers on YouTube is a nightmare of fake trailers, content borrowed by random unofficial people for ad revenue, and there’s no discoverability for indie movies like there was in the Apple site, which just lists everything coming out, and not just superhero movies.
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I used to like using it, because even now when looking for new trailers on YouTube, you have to be careful on what you click, because half the time it's some other site hijacking the trailer with like "Here's the new Trailer for Marvel's blah blah coming right up, brought to you by blah blah blah" instead of just showing the fricken trailer. Or, as someone mentioned above, it's a fake trailer made up of clips of other movies or whatever.
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The constant rehosting of trailers and never being sure what's official and what isn't is such a pain with YT.
Pour one out for this service indeed.
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I still remember QuickTime being the best [exclusive?] way to watch the trailer for The Phantom Menace at home. Getting 2/3 through downloading the 640*480 “high resolution” version over a 56k connection before it got interrupted and having to start all over was the second most disappointing experience I had with that movie.
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I usually go for whatever link is the studio YT account because those typically don’t have ads.
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I really enjoyed the release date timeline. It showed all movies in order of release date. They now just show popular upcoming movies. It went from something we looked at every couple weeks to something we rarely bother looking at.
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I remember impressing my friends in college by showing off the trailers site that Apple had set up to show off QuickTime in the early-to-mid 90's. I'm pretty positive it was 320x240 size video on my 9 inch Mac Color Classic, but the fact that you were watching blocky video and tinny audio of a movie trailer was amazing to everyone who saw it.
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I remember the older version of AppleTV, where there was a hack called PlexConnect you could use to hijack the DNS entry for trailers.apple.com and redirect it to a custom plex server frontend, so that you could watch your Plex library from your ATV by using the Trailers app.
It's completely obsolete now that AppleTV has an actual app store, with a native Plex app, but it was the one useful purpose the Trailers app ever served for me back then.
It's completely obsolete now that AppleTV has an actual app store, with a native Plex app, but it was the one useful purpose the Trailers app ever served for me back then.
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I can't stand YouTube. There is so much crap on there, I hate wading through it and I don't use Google products unless I absolutely have to.
I watch trailers using one of two apps:
IMDb - I would guess most people here know this site. Owned by Amazon now, it has had to endure a little enshitification lately, but for the most part it's still pretty useful.
JustWatch - This is a great little app that if you search for a given show, it will tell you where its is streaming for free and for a rental fee. It also generally has the official trailers, as well as some info for the show - actors, directors, etc.
I watch trailers using one of two apps:
IMDb - I would guess most people here know this site. Owned by Amazon now, it has had to endure a little enshitification lately, but for the most part it's still pretty useful.
JustWatch - This is a great little app that if you search for a given show, it will tell you where its is streaming for free and for a rental fee. It also generally has the official trailers, as well as some info for the show - actors, directors, etc.
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I still use this app regularly. It's amazing with kids, because you can pull up a 2-minute trailer of some kiddo movie and it will distract them from whatever problem they are having. But, unlike a real show, it is over in 2 minutes and everyone can move on with their lives. Sad to see it go!
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This was epic and ahead of its time back in the day. Fond memories of this place. I remember downloading the trailers and watch them over and over again.
Good times
Good times
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Agree that JustWatch is a gem. I like that I can add only the streaming services I subscribe to and it always remembers that list when I'm searching for where a show or movie is streaming or purchasble.
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So I’m guessing the RSS feed is dying too? I have used that for at least 15 years 
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As someone who still used this app on my AppleTV from time to time, I'm sad to see it go. Even though I used it infrequently, it was a good way for me to quickly catch up on what movies are coming out--particularly with an eye toward what might be a good new movie for my kids.
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I remember a year or two ago, I was cleaning up some old bookmarks on my computer, and I came across one linking to this site that still worked, and I was amazed that it still existed.
I totally get shutting it down, but I kinda wish they would keep it going as a time-capsule of those days. The fact that it hadn't really changed in forever was interesting.
I totally get shutting it down, but I kinda wish they would keep it going as a time-capsule of those days. The fact that it hadn't really changed in forever was interesting.
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I remember using this site to sell MacBooks iBooks and PowerBooks. Because 1080i was really impressive back then... and you could open like 4 of those tab windows.
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I believe that QuickTime for Microsoft Windows is still available on Apple's website, somewhere deep in the site map? Though maybe they might have removed it by now.
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it's there but Apple has killed development for it because the player on Mac is basically playing standerds video and it's not required for itunes. most of the early installs were because a lot of CDrom software was developed on macintosh using Quicktime video Compton's would install the V1.0 version of Quicktime for windows 3.1 that included the orgnal smaple.mov. the star trek Captans chair cd-rom also has a 16bit quicktime for windows install to run quicktime VR. i at one point had to run 2 versions a 32 bit to view movie trailers and the oldwin 16 to play games.
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Sad to see this go. It was the best way to watch trailers imo. Youtube kind of sucks for that now. Just a site dedicated to movie trailers let you discover so many movies. At the time I preferred it over Youtube because the quality of the video was much higher.
Just the other day I was thinking about how I barely listen to music in the streaming world. I used to listen to music every day on my way to and from work, every chance I got. You would think with Apple Music or Spotify I would listen to more music, but now I don't listen to music at all. The same with movie trailers, I rarely watch them now even though they are theoretically more accessible than ever. It just doesn't feel like a special thing anymore.
Just the other day I was thinking about how I barely listen to music in the streaming world. I used to listen to music every day on my way to and from work, every chance I got. You would think with Apple Music or Spotify I would listen to more music, but now I don't listen to music at all. The same with movie trailers, I rarely watch them now even though they are theoretically more accessible than ever. It just doesn't feel like a special thing anymore.
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To watch trailers these days, I find the movie on Letterboxd and click the "Trailer" link there. It's just a YouTube embed, but it's always an official, high-quality, working video, and Letterboxd's sort and search tools are the best.
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Don't have additional ads. The whole trailer is an ad after all.
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Apple is pretty slow to remove old stuff - you can still download the Airport Utility for Windows (and they haven't sold an Airport in years), and Safari for Windows (version 5.1, we're up to 16 now) was only taken down somewhat recently. It was unique in that it allowed you to select Windows font rendering or Mac font rendering (Windows tries to get "nearest pixels", macos gets "perfect shape, and it you're off on the pixels, tough"... the former is better for lower resolution screens, the latter better for actual consistency across everything. But the former isn't determinate for apps, which can make scaling tricky.)
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Godsdammit!
I’m a documentary junkie, and this was and remained the best way to discover new ones. Genres -> Documentaries and you’d have all the latest ones in nice reverse chronological order. Right on my PC in my browser of choice. Not some app.
Many of these were smallish and/or independent productions that will now have even less exposure.
I’m a documentary junkie, and this was and remained the best way to discover new ones. Genres -> Documentaries and you’d have all the latest ones in nice reverse chronological order. Right on my PC in my browser of choice. Not some app.
Many of these were smallish and/or independent productions that will now have even less exposure.
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The Trailers app on the Apple TV quite frankly has always been a pain in my rear. When you navigate down from the top, it would always "grab" onto the drop-down menu to select a genre (iirc), rather than continue down to the list of current trailers. I'd rather Apple have simply fixed the app rather than ditching it, but whatever. I just checked the TV app and.... I don't see where to find trailers.
Ooooh... I finally found them. It's under "Store", scroll down and "Watch the Latest Trailers". I've long said the ATV app sucks. Still does. Time to find a 3rd party alternative for trailers.
Ooooh... I finally found them. It's under "Store", scroll down and "Watch the Latest Trailers". I've long said the ATV app sucks. Still does. Time to find a 3rd party alternative for trailers.
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Isn't IMDB a pretty reliable site for trailers now? (RIP Apple trailer site.)
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My family used this app multiple times per week on the Apple TV box connected to our TV. Not only was it a quick way to find out about upcoming movies, it was also the easiest way to find what movies were playing locally across multiple movies chains. Plus, the trailers weren’t interrupted by ads and there was the presumption we were avoiding marketing tracking. We got used to it, relied on it, it will be missed…
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I noticed that a lot of people were looking for an alternative to watch trailers, if interested you can checkout this app deazy on android it's a trailer aggregator, website is comming soon!
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If you tried to use IMDB to avoidt that non-sense you would spend so much time trying to wade through a sea of badly made direct to streaming movies. The old Apple Trialer site felt bet curated. I visited it weekly and will miss it.
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Not really, it's full of badly made trailers for badly made movies that often feel like they were shot in someones backyard.
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