Sometimes I like to give (“gift”) people movies that I enjoyed. You used to just send them a .torrent file, but nowadays it’s kind of frowned upon. I watch price changes on the Apple TV Store using an app called CheapCharts, which works amazingly. When the price drops on a movie on my wish list, I get a notification and usually when the price hits €3.99, I buy, since that’s the lowest a normal movie will ever go for. Sometimes I have to wait for years, but eventually I can get everything for cheap and legal.

Now this works well when I’m purchasing for myself. But when I want to give a movie to somebody, Apple makes me play a little game, which I habe become quite fond of. This is the game:

Ever since iTunes went away and we’re supposed to use the Apple TV app, gifting movies has not been possible any more. But there is a workaround.

You start by going to the old iTunes app. It only lets you search for music though! So you have to find an actor, who also recorded a song!

Now you find the song, click on the actor’s name to show a list of everything they’ve done, including movies! Now you can play: click on a movie, view the cast and click on another actor’s name to show their movies. You have to find a connection to an actor, who was in the movie you’re tring to gift! It may take multiple, if not many, steps, but eventually you get there.

Now you can use the established way to gift that movie. On iOS, it’s share arrow and scroll down, to “Gift”. Enter recipient details and send.

I always found it amazing it works this way. Laughable, but somehow fun. It will be a sad day, when the iTunes app is finally removed from iOS.

PS: I usually start my journey with Bruce Willis 🥰