Apple's Special Version of iTunes That Still Has an App Store Currently Incompatible With macOS Mojave

Last year, Apple removed the App Store from iTunes. Soon after, however, Apple quietly released a special edition of iTunes that retains access to the App Store for "certain business partners" who "might still need to use iTunes to install apps."

Apple provides a download page on its website for the special edition of iTunes, which originally had a version number of 12.6.3. Two updates have since been released, including version 12.6.4 and the current version 12.6.5.

As brought to our attention by a MacRumors reader, and confirmed by our own testing, however, iTunes 12.6.5 fails to install on Mac systems updated to the public release of macOS Mojave this week. It also appears that the previous 12.6.3 and 12.6.4 versions do not function properly on macOS Mojave.

It's unclear if Apple does not plan on supporting the special edition of iTunes on macOS Mojave, or simply hasn't updated it yet. In the meantime, Apple Configurator can be used to mass-deploy apps on iOS devices from a Mac.

Related Roundup: macOS Mojave

Tag: iTunes

Top Rated Comments

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Schranke

14 months ago

How about apple make a special version of iTunes which only contains music?
Nothing else, note even the connect thingy or other “social media” features, just music.

One can dream

Rating: 22 Votes

69Mustang

14 months ago

Why is this surprising? Mojave moved things so it doesn't have to be within iTunes. Should one expect it to be available in two places?

Yes, yes they should. It's why the special edition exists.

...that retains access to the App Store for "certain business partners" who "might still need to use iTunes to install apps.

Mojave doesn't obviate the needs of those business partners.

Rating: 9 Votes

B4U

14 months ago

What does this even mean? iTunes works fine, version 12.9..... downloads with Mojave. I have no idea what all this 12.6 jibber jabber is, seems like out of date version. Maybe someone could just state clearly?

Please read the article one more time.
It clearly says this iTunes version was special released after 12.7 came out with AppStore still available.

Rating: 8 Votes

dannys1

14 months ago

How about apple make a special version of iTunes which only contains music?
Nothing else, note even the connect thingy or other “social media” features, just music.

One can dream

That's all it really contains now - it has tabs for movies, audiobooks and podcasts but you have to change the interface to get to them. Mine sits on the music tab the majority of the time and all it contains is music, doesn't even mention "social media" features as you say anywhere.

I'm not sure how anyone could complain about the way iTunes is laid out now.

Rating: 7 Votes

Janichsan

14 months ago

Why is this surprising? Mojave moved things so it doesn't have to be within iTunes. Should one expect it to be available in two places?

The iOS App Store and iOS app management under macOS is not available in two places. It always only was in iTunes and since the initial removal of these features in iTunes 12.7 (which lead to a significant backlash) has never been available anywhere else on the Mac. In fact, with the current iTunes 12.9, these features are available at no places at all.

Rating: 7 Votes

Porco

14 months ago

I'm not sure how anyone could complain about the way iTunes is laid out now.

I am, because I hate it. I much preferred seeing a permanent list (of my choosing) in the sidebar, instead the stupid drop-down list that I have to select another section from every time. It’s a small additional step (especially using a keyboard shortcut), but I far prefer the old layout.

I agree with your answer in terms of someone who only wants to use music in iTunes though, if you only want to use music in iTunes then... just do that?!

Rating: 6 Votes

SnarkyBear

14 months ago

Get Vox (version 2.8.26). You'll thank me later.

At $4.99/month? Yet another subscription based app. Ugh, no thank you.

Rating: 6 Votes

Jordan Klein

14 months ago

One issue I've not seen mentioned yet.

The ability to organize your apps in iTunes is so much better than having to do it from the iPhone or iPad. I can create a lot of app groups much faster on my Mac using iTunes than I can on either iDevice.

Rating: 6 Votes

mdwsta4

14 months ago

THIS. I don't care how fast my connection is, why should I have to manually download the app onto every single device in my house? Downloading it once on my MBP and then syncing all necessary devices is so much easier.

For example, I deployed a free app using it to 25 iPads, but when you try to launch the app on the iPads you have to sign in with your Apple ID. This makes it fairly useless for deploying apps to be used by a large number of people for an event (the usual purpose of these iPads) unless you have someone go through each iPad first and manually log in with the Apple ID used to install the apps.

When you'd install an app downloaded with iTunes, it would install the necessary certificates so this was not necessary.

Internet speed has nothing to do with it. How is it easier to download the same app 5x (1x for each device) rather than downloading it a single time on your computer and syncing your devices? The answer: it's not.

The reason why they killed this off is because 100mbps internet and faster is now standard in America.

Looks like I'll hold off on installing Mojave for a few weeks in hopes they do release an updated version of iTunes that retains the app store.

Rating: 6 Votes

NMBob

14 months ago

Just followed the link to the download page ('https://support.apple.com/HT208079'), and it looks like iTunes 12.6 for Mac is dead. Apple updated the page to remove the Mac download, and it now only has the Windows version...

Wow! I just happened to still have the page open before they removed it. Looks like it's still there.

https://secure-appldnld.apple.com/itunes12/091-87821-20180912-69177170-B085-11E8-B6AB-C1D03409AD2A/iTunes12.6.5.dmg

Rating: 5 Votes

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