My little sister received a few iTunes gift cards this Christmas and asked me if she could use them to buy a case for her new iPod. I was cautious to assure her because I had never explicitly heard of such a thing. I came home and explicitly read the exact opposite thing:

What can I buy with an iTunes Gift Card or iTunes Gift Certificate?

iTunes Gift Cards and iTunes Gift Certificates can be used to purchase music, videos, TV shows, and audio books from the iTunes Store. At this time, iTunes Gift Cards and iTunes Gift Certificates are not accepted for online Apple Store purchases.

The vice versa reads:

Note: Apple Gift Cards cannot be redeemed at the iTunes Music Store.

Both of us immediately questioned- Why? I thought Apple owned both the iTunes Store and their brick-and-mortar stores. That’s like saying your Walmart gift card is good in Sporting Goods by not in Electronics.

My only guess is that deals with media outlets that provide the music, videos, TV shows, and audio books from the iTunes Store are different from the vendors that offer all the non-Apple products from the Apple Stores. Shouldn’t they be able to handle this internally instead of making two different types of gift cards?

My other sister is saving up for a MacBook for high school and her grandmother gave her an iTunes gift card with good intentions to help her, but it turns out it’ll only help her buy more Taylor Swift albums. What’s the deal? Why hasn’t Apple addressed this? I’d say try to exchange, but that doesn’t sound plausible according to the Apple Support Discussions.