Is the iTunes Movie Rental Service a Contender?
MacWorld 2008 is in full swing and Jobs’ keynote included several interesting announcements. Of course there’s plenty of buzzing with regards to disappointment, but what else is new? Among his announcements was the initiation of a la carte movie rentals courtesy of iTunes, but we’ve had a pretty good idea that movie rentals have been in the pipeline for quite a while. Is the service as it stands a contender though? The natural response is to say ‘yes’; after all Jobs is basically the King Midas of tech. In the grand scheme of things though, it’s a very pricey service with plenty of competitors that in many respects, offer superior options. Common sense would tell us that iTunes can’t come close to touching Netflix, especially now that they offer free unlimited streaming with each unlimited rental plan. For $9 per month, Netflix will give you unlimited physical rentals (one at a time) and unlimited streaming from their online library that is already six times the size of what iTunes will pack by the end of next month. With the iTunes service, the best you can do with your $9 is rent three movies; and that’s older SD movies by the way. You’ll need to add $1 per rental if you want new releases and another $1 if you’d like to bump it up to HD. Looking at the big picture, Apple’s plan seemingly deserves a huge WTF! But wait, almost the same thing could be said about their music service. How hard is it to find free or inexpensive music these days? Yet here we are, billions of DRM-protected iTunes tracks later and Apple is still steamrolling. The safe bet here is probably that iTunes movie rentals will also be a hit because despite being one of the most expensive options available, Apple is just too good. The beauty and simplicity of their product, the fact that their delivery mechanism already installed on millions upon millions of PCs and Macs, the tremendous integration between systems; it all adds up to success with the masses. And that, people, is what Apple is all about these days. Simplicity, quality, ease of use and of course a touch of marketing brilliance. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re off to buy some more Apple stock; it won’t end here…
Wow..Good Stuff. I’m so excited!!
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I get my movies free from the librbary. Older or new releases. I can see people bored online renting movies.
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zach i agree with your article and its pretty well written too.
The only point where i disagree is the ” despite being one of the most expensive options available”, as i see it Netflix (ad above comments lol) is cheaper and i understand that but for cable customers or satelite customers your looking at about the same prices. And I would venture to bet that your looking at bigger numbers with Cable then with Netflix. I could be wrong but I doubt it. So then the prices are for the most part right in line with other services (other than the Netflix’s).
I think they will only be successful if they get more people buying AppleTVs or more people learn that their ipods can do Video out. More people are clueless and just think they play music.
but this is a step in a very good direction, not to mention HD podcasts are free….how about a BGR podcast?
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The ONLY downfall of netflix I see is that the video streaming is not compatable with macs… Thats where iTunes comes in.
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This is super cool if you have an apple tv, which I do. Netlix offering keeps you stuck in the office watching your computer or watching movies on your laptop. Not so fun, and not so Mac. I’m curious to see how the experience works out in the living room with HD and surround sound and, get this, A SOFA! Hahaha.
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The on thing people continually fail to realize about netflix is that the online selection of movies is beyond terrible. They do not offer very good titles from the past, let alone anything new.
Combining that with what Justin said about it not being compatible with macs, and I can see where this might fit a fairly large niche.
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Still waiting on that 32gb Touch to replace my black iPod (video…lol).
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Still waiting on that 32gb iPod Touch to replace my black iPod (video…lol).
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Netflix doesn’t stream online to my big screen, unless I haul my PC over to my projector…(too big a hassle)…Blockbuster doesn’t always have the movie I want in Blu-ray…and I don’t want to sign up for a monthly service that I may or may not use.
While the Apple TV isn’t perfect — 720p is not 1080p, encoding to iTunes-supported formats is time-consuming, and it remains to be seen what kind of digital audio support your own backed-up movies have with the new aTV software — the device IS looking more attractive to me to aggregate my media and provide the occasional rental.
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I forget who said it, a famous producer
but anyoen who id dumb enough to think watching a movie on a little ass screen is even close to getting the experience it was designed for is fucking retarded
funny, yet truthful
I would never watch a movie on anything smaller than my 17 inch laptop…and even that is too small for me.
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King Midas of tech?!
First of all, that would either be gates or Woz, and second of all, Jobs is somewhere closer to the used golden carriage salesman of tech. Please keep the biased banter in the comment threads and out of the articles. Plus, I think I can see my movies without HD, I don’t own and can’t afford an HDTV and it’s not like there’s an extremely sensitive focus knob on the side of my ordinary TV. That’s why I think this is going to be a huge success. Too much of the public is seduced by acronyms such as HDTV, HDMI, everyone wants a “bluetooth” (that’s become the term) and nobody knows what anything even means. 1080p is a sexy number because everyone assumes that it means something good if it has an exclamation point after it. I defy all my neighbors to tell me what gigabit ethernet means. These technologies are only worth it when they become the mainstream. There is no rationale to buying something you have no idea about the function of, and that’s the entire ad campaign for all the corporations. Sheesh, I thought an electronics insider would want that.
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@ Ian:
That was the worst defense of ATV.
Did you know that the movies that you have streaming to your laptop can connect to your tv?!
Shocking!
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Gates = Midas?? Yeah, Vista was pure gold…
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If (more like when) Netflix finally gets its streaming service integrated into gaming consoles (I’m looking directly at you Xbox) it will be a game changer. It seems an inevitable progression. The Netflix founder is on the MS board. You can position the XboxLive Marketplace content as premium/HD/downloadable/portable content and then position Netflix as the ‘free’ streaming service. It would be a win-win for both parties.
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So far the best thing about iTunes 7.6 is that it finally works on Vista x64 with the iPhone. FINALLY!! I do not have to use my work laptop to transfer music…
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I rented a movie on iTunes and tried to watch it on my computer and there was no sound. Does anyone know how to get the sound?
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