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1. Better have a million album covers be butchered the same way, than having a bunch of them butchered in different ways (eg. having rounded corners applied twice).

2. If designs change, having the corners around is necessary for future proofing

I find it weird cause I've actually seen exceptions to the perfect square rule, which you'd figure they'd enforce in the upload.

On Apple Music, Ween's album GodWeenSatan: The Oneness has album art that isn't a square, it's a slightly wide rectangle. When it's in a carousel with other albums it's not even vertically centered, it's bottom-aligned so it's a bit shorter than all the other albums. Though if you click into the album itself they put some magenta letterboxing on the top and bottom that's slightly darker than the pink on the album cover.

...which we will butcher by rounding the corners in all of our apps.

They're probably just future-proofing the data.

Corners have been getting less round over time, and Apple is preparing for a day when corners become right angles again. And also for a day when everyone wants just circles, or ovals, or stars, or some other shape.