iTunes Store Gets Revamped in iOS 6

At WWDC when Apple released iOS 6 beta 1 to developers, they didn’t talk much about the changes to the iTunes Store. Having my hands on iOS 6 for the past couple of days, I have noticed that Apple has made some significant changes to the iTunes stores, changes that Apple has yet to publicly reveal.

The first thing you’re going to notice below is, Apple changed the look of it quite drastically. At the bottom of the main store page on the iPhone or iPod touch, you still see the standard buttons for navigating between movies, music, tv shows, and search. Of course you can still customize the buttons at the bottom how ever you’d want, like before. At the top right of the iTunes Store, you can view your history of items you previously looked at. One thing I found surprising is that, Apple still incorporates Ping into the iTunes store in iOS 6, but it won’t allow you to go into it like it says below. Apple also doesn’t allow you to access your purchased content from the iTunes store as you could see above. Apple may change that in upcoming betas though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now with the iTunes Store in iOS 6, there is a player built in for previewing music. You can preview a song, or any sort of audio, brows around the rest of the application, or even get completely out of it, and the audio will continue to play. The reviews of different items are better organized, now including the ability to like it on Facebook. Also you can now play movie trailers straight from the iTunes store.

Facebook has also been deeply integrated into the iTunes Store. When you first open the iTunes store, there will be a popup saying that “iTunes” requests permission to access your Facebook data, and to post on your behalf. As shown below, you have the option to hit OK, More info, or to not allow. When you are viewing details of a movie, song, etc, you can tap the share button at the top and it will bring up the share menu. In the share menu you have the ability to share to Facebook, Twitter, Mail, Messages, or you can copy the link.

One of the down sides of the new iTunes store is, it no longer includes a section for podcasts. It hasn’t been confirmed whether apple is going to re-impliment them into the iTunes store or not, but for now the only way to download a new podcast is to use the iTunes store on the Mac or PC.

Here are some screenshots of the iTunes Store in iOS 6 on the new iPad. With the bigger screen of the iPad, Apple is able to take advantage of that screen size by showing more information about the content, and showing more content at one time on the screen.

Now these issues may only be found in this beta, considering it is the first beta of iOS 6. Apple usually releases 4-7 different betas. Each one coming a few weeks after the other. With future betas on the horizon, and the release of iOS 6 coming in the fall, things in this first beta are subject to change.