Apple may have enough experience with selling movies now that they realize the music market is very different from the movie market. A lot of people want to own music to listen to it over and over again over the years, but far less want to own movies. Watching it once and moving on seems to be good enough for most people.
So Apple’s model of selling movies for $10 and up may leave a considerable chunk of the market on the table. That explains why they are now apparently negotiating with major studios for rights to rent movies via iTunes as well.
The new service may be coming this Fall, and will cost $2.99 for a 30-day rental.
This is also good news for Apple TV users, who will be able to download new movies and watch them on their living room televisions. The day when we can all simply abandon our cable TV subscriptions is coming; I plan to do it at the end of 2007.
By the way, this isn’t the first time rumors about rental movies on iTunes surfaced. See our post from a year ago on the same topic. It isn’t a sure thing until Steve Jobs gets up on a stage and announces it.
Many other services already support movie rentals. See our roundup post from late 2006 for details.
There is so much entertainment available that it just is not practical to hold on to anything but the creme of the crop.
You watch it once as tonight’s entertainment, and if it does not hit home, you watch something new tomorrow.
If something REALLY triggers something inside, you hold on to it to watch again or show to others who may be affected by it.
I tried to give up the cable box last month and switch to slightly cheaper DSL. Then I tested the speed at 25+ Mb/s, and the ‘up to 1.5 Mb/s’ wasn’t quite worth the $20/month I’d save.
Even so, I am down to just the bare minimum cable at this point. With Joost and something like Netflix or Blockbuster it’s great.
As for Apple rentals, unless something gets a lot better in the quality and speed, no thanks. The only movie I got that looks decent downloaded was when AOL was giving them away free and I got Zoolander.
The introduction of iTunes movies for rent does a few things beyond the obvious addition of new revenue streams for Apple. It also helps the Apple TV reach its full potential, making that device a must-have for anybody who wants VOD through iTunes to the big screen, and it also makes my need for Netflix go away. Once this debuts, assuming an oustanding available video library, we’ll be unsubscribing from Netflix. Can’t wait for this.
Hmm, I wonder if they will come up with “monthly subscription” (like… “watch everything you want for $50 per month”) or something like that. Cable televisions are “kind of” doing that, so why not bring the model in the net as well.
If it weren’t for Arrington blogging about Desktop Tower Defense, I would be getting a huge return on our one year “experiment” without cable. Aside from that little detour playing DTD, it’s been an incredible year.
No land line at home…
… save $50 per month
No cable or satellite…
…save $60 per month
No calls from telemarketers and quality time with family?
…PRICELESS!!!
As long as Apple can make sure “no need to play around with DRM”, then you can add that into the PRICELESS category as well.
Why would you give up your cable subscription? Cable already has OnDemand services which are rapidly expanding. With a reliable delivery network, an existing set top box and an established user base wouldn’t it be smart to place bets on companies like Time Warner and Comcast?
Just my two pennies.
This sounds like an interesting idea. There are so many what ifs and law suits that will come of this. If one person break the Drm and puts it on the internet apple is screwed they get sewed for money. Because they went over there contracts agreements. Then they will be sewing the person who broke it. Overall it’s a good idea just needs to be thought through very well.
Wayne, price could be one option, even though “convenience” is probably one of the biggest factor - if Appe doesn’t make it smooth (or smoother than cable) then they have a problem. DRM can become crucial issue, as will pricing schemes.
The price is great (if it stays that way) and they might as well leverage all they can, they have the traffic and technological infrastructure already in place. Add a few servers and voila… video store!
Jon
OH SWEEEET!
this is gonna be awesome!
I can see where this could be good for Apple, but I’m a little surprised at the excitement. It’s not like these services don’t already exist in a bunch of different forms.
I mean, even if it’s perfect, the price is worse than the 10+ rentals you can get from Blockbuster for $9.99 a month.
And if it’s not great quality, then the cable box stays the best on-demand option for legitimate viewers and BitTorrent for illegitimate.
Hmmm,
No HD = no sale for me at least
Also, my cable provides INSTANT on demand HD movies. No waiting hours for the movie to download like say XBox 360 and I assume iTunes
Whether the masses are happy with non SD rentals remains to be seen. I guess for their iPod that might be okay but on their TV? I don’t know.
- downloading movies is a little off /
- $2.99 / movie makes it a little closer …..
- The question is who can hack the 30 day? file?
-RB
Fingers are very crossed for this new iTunes rental service. There are other good services out there like Movielink and Vongo, but iTunes would be a great boon for the business - then hopefully they would move to subscription based…Otherwise I’ll stick primarily with Blockbuster Total Access.
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I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Apple TV is weak and old news. Who cares? I’ve had Apple TV since 2001 when it was called “S-Video Cable.”