On January 15, 2008, Apple announced iTunes Movie Rentals featuring movies from all the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Users can rent movies for as low as US$2.99 and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and Apple TV.
In their press release, Apple stated clearly, “Movie rentals work on iPod classic, iPod nano with video and iPod touch.“
Two weeks later, some people seem surprised that movie rentals still do not work on iPods other than iPod classic, iPod nano with video and iPod touch as evidenced by Wired’s Bryan Gardner’s newsflash published today, “Apple Prohibits Movie Rentals on Recent iPods.” Oh, the humanity.
After the usual misplaced hysterics (a particularly funny one: “This is false advertising,” says Raymond Blanchard, a disgruntled iPod owner. “I demand an upgrade or fix.”), Gardner does finally get around to the actual facts, “For now, the most likely suspect has to do with what some have deemed the ‘analog hole’ present in 5-G iPods. Previous generation iPods have an analog video output that works with standard video cables. As some have observed, this theoretically makes it easier to copy rented movies, by plugging the iPod into a camcorder or other video-recording device.”
“Yankee Group’s Carl Howe offers another likely reason for 5-G iPod-rental incompatibility. ‘The other factor is whether you have a secure real-time clock,’ Howe explains. ‘Why do I want a secure clock? Because you don’t want people messing with the time code since (iTunes) rentals are only supposed to last 24 hours after you start viewing them.’ This was almost certainly a requirement imposed by the movie studios, he concludes,” Gardner reports.
“Howe says, iPods don’t fall under the growing trend of ‘hardware as a service,’ whereby hardware receives continuous upgrades via firmware updates [as with iPhone and Apple TV],” Gardner reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Curtis” for the heads up.]
Buy a new one.
This is funny on several levels to me, but what is happening on a basic level is that people are being educated in Apple’s way of doing things. That is, they mean what they say.
OMG My 07 car only has 2 doors not 4 doors like the new 08!!!!! I call shenanigans!! Get someone out here pronto to cut me 2 new doors holes for free damn you!!!
There are compromises everywhere. My old iPod won’t play video of any kind, nor will it display photos. No one purchased the 5G iPod with the expectation of viewing rented movies. Once again some people need to be reminded that their equipment does nothing less than it did when it warranted a purchase. As technology moves forward most of us get left behind unless we pony up more cash. Why is Apple always being singled out for this? Oh yeah, Apple is the only one innovating at the speed of light.
rentals don’t play on older models because those iPods don’t support anamorphic 720×480, which is what the rentals use to provide DVD quality and scalable playback on a broad range of devices, including AppleTV
This is obviously not false advertising on Apple’s part, so nobody has the right to be legitimately angry. That being said, I’m sure Apple could have made available for download the appropriate software upgrade. I don’t have a previous iPod video, but I can understand people wanting the software upgrade–even at a price, like with the iPod touch.
Wired used to be “it” in terms of tech journalism. That it has now stooped so low as to publish misleading crap like this is both annoying and sad. Even the headline itself is misleading.
Philip,
You assume that filling the “analog hole” is a software issue, but in the case of the older iPods I believe it’s a hardware issue.
Raymond Blanchard and those of his ilk need to get a clue. Have they attempted to compile a list of all of the other commercial devices that can be updated to include functionality that is provided on newer models?
Overall, I believe that Apple has done a nice job in providing computers/devices with lengthy operational lives and good upgrade paths. Older Macs can generally run the fifth generation of MacOS X reasonably well, iPod/iPod touch updates, AppleTV updates, iPhone updates, etc.
One thing that Apple does that bugs me is changing interface types/locations and using slightly non-standard or recessed connectors, etc. But things did get much better after Apple bought into industry standard such as PCI, USB, etc. One of my last remaining gripes is that you can’t plug a standard ‘PC’ video card into a Mac. Let’s get away from Mac-specific video cards!
I’m going to contact Blanchard and see if he wants to join my class action suit. I’m suing Apple because my Apple ][ won’t rent movies from iTunes. It won’t even run OS X! How could they do this most heinous and dastardly deed? Recidivists,they are!
I was disappointed that the rentals wouldn’t work on my 5th gen iPod. The copy on Apple’s Web site, as well as the help in iTunes itself, referred to copying movies to “your iPod.” It seems reasonable that 5th gen owners might well have expected that iPods, which are perfectly capable of playing movies, would have been able to handle rentals.
I have a feeling that the vast majority of these onerous limitations aren’t due to Apple but to the studios.
You mean… I can’t play movies on my G2 10GB iPod with the black & white screen..?
See you in court, Jobs.
I wonder if these complainers are also pissed that the PC they bought 2 years ago can’t run Shitsa?
My touch screen packed it in on my old ipod too. The only way to work it is to move my thumb in a circular motion in the centre of it. Wierd.
I put a CD on my record player and it sounded like crap and it scratched the buggery out of it. Where can I get a new needle?
Wired is now tired. . . (yawn)
“As some have observed, this theoretically makes it easier to copy rented movies, by plugging the iPod into a camcorder or other video-recording device.”
BINGO! Only Apple could remove a major feature, try to assert the new ones are better, all the while pushing you to swallow DRM inspired crippled hardware. Love my Macs, but can’t stand iTunes + iPod and the crippleware coming out today, not that other brands are any better. There was a day when if you owned a Mac you could rip, record, save ANYTHING that came across your desktop. Already those features are being denied. Soon they’ll remove the ability to convert to MP3 too, under the moral assertion that everyone who does is just a thief.
These guys are to journalism as the Spice Girls are to Grand Opera.
While Apple has been very clear about which iPods the iTunes rental service will work on (His Jobsness even displayed the appropriate iPods during his keynote), I can understand the disappointment of having an “iPod with Video” (Apple’s name for the product!) not be able to play video (albeit rented).
Noone expects a first gen 5GB black and white iPod to play videos. Those comparisons are just silly.
“BINGO! Only Apple could remove a major feature, try to assert the new ones are better, all the while pushing you to swallow DRM inspired crippled hardware.”
yeah cause Apple really wants to lose sales due to this, while i am sure the movie companies, who don’t have any history like this at all, have nothing to do with it……
oops, forgot to close my sarcasm tag. </sarcasm>
A new wave of writers and analysts are rising up now. Basically, all the guys who covered the Wintel era are obsolete and irrelevant. While they were covering Wintel, they neglected Apple, and they are trying to play catch up now. Too bad! New media, new writers, new thinkers. Forget CNet, Wired, MSNBC, Dvorak, Endele, etc. etc. etc.
New operating system, new ecosystem!
There’s a reason why Apple released the new iPods in September 2007, four months before announcing the existence of the video rental service. The fact that the old 5G iPods cannot use the rental service must be a hardware issue that cannot be overcome by updating the software. Otherwise, Apple would do it as it has in the past by updating the iPod’s internal software as much as possible. Video rental is a new feature, just like video itself is a new feature for the newest iPod nano. Should Apple give free upgrades to customers who bought the previous (non-video) iPod nano during the four months before September
We don’t have any itunes movies or TV shows of any sort in Australia yet and you are fussing about rentals!!!!!!!!
“Buy a new one.”
That’s right, you should update all your white plastic gadgets once a year as Jobs commands.
In reply to the unregistered nameless one above:
Yes, that would be great if you can afford it. There is always a sound reason why Apple does things, we just don’t always know why. If you want to follow the Apple path, you’d better get used to it.
That’s the way they roll.
If you can’t accept that, then hitch your wagon to MicroSoft and ride off into the sunset. Happy trails!