Things You Probably Didn’t Need to Know About the iTunes Music Store. More after the break.

  • You communicate with the main iTunes storefront via the phobos.apple.com address. Phobos, as you may recall, is one of Mars’ moons. Its name means fear. The other moon, Deimos, means loathing and the deimos.apple.com address is used mainly by third-party providers, like UC Berkeley Online’s iTunes U storefront.
  • It’s built around a number of WebObject applications, specifically MZStore.woa (storefront/cart stuff), MZFinance.woa (mostly making purchases, subscribing to podcasts), MZSearch.woa (searching iTMS) and MZLabel.woa (for record labels to load their music–you can apply for the program here).
  • A fair part of the available API can be examined with these URLs: SecureBag (mostly MZFinance calls) and StoreBag (browsing, welcome, storefront, searches).

These API calls include the following Web URLs:

authenticateAccount https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/authenticate
authorizeMachine https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/ authorizeMachine
buyProduct https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/buyProduct
buyCart https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/ buyCart
deauthorizeMachine https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/ deauthorizeMachine machine
AuthorizationInfo https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFastFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/ machineAuthorizationInfo
modifyAccount https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/ accountSummary
pendingSongs https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/ pendingSongs
signup https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/ signupWizard
songDownloadDone https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFastFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/ songDownloadDone
forgottenPassword https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/ iForgot
uploadPublishedPlaylist https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.app.finance.DirectAction/ uploadPublishedPlayList
logout https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/logout
addToCart https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/addToCart
removeFromCart https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/removeFromCart
shoppingCart https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/shoppingCart
upgradePhone https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/upgradePhone
upgradeDrm https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/upgradeDrm
reportPodcast https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/reportPodcast
give-playlist https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZFinance.woa/wa/giftSongsWizard
storeFront http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/storeFront
newUserStoreFront http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/storeFront
newIPodUserStoreFront http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/newIPodUser?newIPodUser=true
newPhoneUser http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/phoneLandingPage
search http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZSearch.woa/wa/DirectAction/search
advancedSearch http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZSearch.woa/wa/DirectAction/advancedSearch
parentalAdvisory http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/com.apple.jingle.appserver.MZDirectAction/ parentalAdvisory
songMetaData http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/songMetaData
browse http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/browse
browseStore http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/browseStore
browseGenre http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/browseGenre
browseArtist http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/browseArtist
browseAlbum http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/browseAlbum
viewAlbum http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum
viewArtist http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist
viewGenre http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/viewGenre
viewPodcast http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast
viewPublishedPlaylist http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/ WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPublishedPlaylist
viewVideo http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/viewVideo
podcasts http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcastDirectory
libraryLink http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/ wa/DirectAction/libraryLink
selectedItemsPage http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/ WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/selectedItemsPage
ministore http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/ministoreWelcome
mini-store V2 http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/ministoreV2
mini-store-match V2 http://ax.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net/WebObjects/ MZSearch.woa/wa/ministoreMatchV2

Update: Other recent iTMShack articles that may be of interest include Grabbing Album Text, Switching Countries from the Command Line (and related how to), Adding iTunes Prefixes with AppleScript, Summarizing iTMS Featured Items, and iTunes Search Query via Sockets.

G’wan. digg it. You know you want to! :)