“With three weeks until Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Think Secret has learned exclusively that CEO Steve Jobs will use his keynote address to announce the debut of movie rentals through the iTunes Music Store. While the announcement will undoubtedly be billed as a further extension of iTunes’ dominance in digital media downloads, it represents a coup for the movie industry, which will have succeeded in standing its ground against Apple’s pressures to offer consumers the option of owning movie downloads,” Ryan Katz reports for Think Secret.
MacDailyNews Note: Steve Jobs’ WWDC keynote presentation is scheduled for Monday, August 7, 2006, beginning at 10am PDT.
“Because the movies will be rented to consumers and not sold, people familiar with the situation report downloads will be coded with a date stamp that will restrict playback,” Katz reports. “‘We knew that Steve [Jobs] saw the rental model as the only viable option,’ a person familiar with the situation said. ‘We knew it was a matter of time before he signed on. The subscription business makes sense for everybody. We’ll all make money. But more importantly, it’s a different beast from music and no one—not even Steve Jobs—is blind to that.'”
More in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We listen to songs over and over, but how often do we watch most movies? Once, maybe twice, if we liked it, right? For the small number of favorite flicks that we want to view more than once or twice, we buy the DVD. People consume music differently than they do feature films. For that reason, we think this rumor, if true, sounds like it has a good chance for success. Now, do we get a new “true” video iPod on which to watch these films or do we have to wait a bit longer for that?
Related articles:
Apple trying to negotiate movie-download price with studios – July 14, 2006
RUMOR: Apple to unveil ‘Mac Pro’ with new enclosure design, Intel Core 2 Duo at WWDC next month – July 03, 2006
Does Apple face delivery issue if they want to sell movies via iTunes Store? – June 28, 2006
Warner Bros. to distribute movies on Guba.com – June 27, 2006
CEO Steve Jobs to preview Mac OS X ‘Leopard’ with team of Apple execs at WWDC 2006 keynote – June 26, 2006
BusinessWeek: Apple agreement with movie studios for iTunes Store unlikely any time soon – June 21, 2006
Apple prepares debut of full-length feature films via iTunes Store in time for 2006 holiday season – June 20, 2006
Report: Movie studios flatly reject Apples’ proposed $9.99 pricing for feature films via iTunes – June 19, 2006
Report: Apple in negotiations with movie studios; $9.99 feature films coming to iTunes soon? – June 19, 2006
Disney to sell movies over Internet via CinemaNow in Windows Media Video format – June 05, 2006
Warner Bros. to sell movies and TV shows via BitTorrent – May 09, 2006
Universal launches film download/DVD service in UK – March 23, 2006
If Front Row can stream movie trailers from Apple, why not whole movies? – January 06, 2006
BusinessWeek: Movie studios need to smarten up and let Apple sell their movies – or be left behind – October 18, 2005
Universal to put its movies online – October 06, 2005
Children watch movies repeatedly, but not so much adults. Especially lo-rez iPod-sized movies. And HD-sized movies are going to be too big for the pipeline for a while yet. Discs still have a place in our world – for now.
I won´t be using this service.
I’d prefer time-restricted playback rather than a finite number of viewings – if only to enable viewing across multiple occasions (interruptions, falling asleep, etc…)
Ideally, the clock would not start ticking until you start the first viewing – rather than ticking the moment you click “buy now” on the Music Store.
I might be the exception here, but that model does not suit me. I like to keep my movies, and like to have the option of viewing them whenever I want.
Steve: Please don’t give in…
Yes, but can I transfer it to my iPod?
Yeah I guess this makes sense, but I’m curious how they’re going to settle the size problem. Heck, it still takes about 90 minutes to get a 700 Mb file at ordinary DSL speeds. It’s not quite the “on demand” service that the cable guys are offering.
Netflix + Handbrake is a winning combination. I get some TV shows via Netflix which are also on the iTMS. But the copies I rip are so much higher quality than what Apple sells.
Skullbuster,
Think of a movie as 3-4 iTMS tv shows. It’ll download faster than you think for most of their actual target market (who are likely to be at the fast end of the broadband speed scale.)
And the DEVELOPERS are going to care about this because … ?
JUST A RUMOR.
Steve Jobs will not be using the developers conference to debut a consumer movie renting service.
Renting movies is the right way to go for iTunes, however the WWDC is not the right event to debut such a service.
I say bring on the Home Media Center. I am not interested in whatching movies on small screens or on a computer.
cant say im that excited considering tc shows still havnt arrived in the uk
Here is a good reasoning, why Apple should rent movies not sell them:
http://www.2manage.de/managementchannel/?p=23
Awww! You ruined the surprise! I’m gonna be bummed if you’re wrong.
Rumor:
New Apple video iPod to be outfitted with 802.11Z to handle local area man’s complaint that ordinary DSL speeds don’t quite manage “on demand” as alleged.
What’s the price?
Make it 99 Cents!
-Unfettered
You stand as a beacon of cunning, innovation, pirateering.
Full Speed Ahead!
I would like a dot Mac Gold subscription which allows me to view up to 30 movies/TV shows a month from a pool of hundreds, without owning them. If it would cache onto a Mac mini for all the kids’ TV shows and my movies, then I could substitute it for the cable subscription, keeping cable for the internet and telephone only.
Then… if iChat goes to telephones with an iPod/iPhone handset then I can get rid of the cable telephone subscription and buy all five of us an iPhone and all talk over wireless VoIP at the one time. We’d keep a couple of mobile phones for when we’re outside the house.
Two less subscriptions, only one more.
I agree with some of the previous posts – this sounds much more likely to debut during the Paris Expo. Steve tries to stay clear of iPod announcements at the developer conf. Stick to core hardware and the OS, Steve.
NO ONE SEEMS TO GET IT……
The WWDC is a DEVELOPERS conference, not a consumer electronics conference. Jobs’ keynote is going to pertain to developers interests, which means OSX, software and the Mac…. PERIOD!
iPods, iPhones, movies and any other consumer oriented product announcements NEVER have been, and NEVER will be introduced at the WWDC.
THIS IS ONLY A RUMOR
Good points about this being a developers’ conference. I don’t think this would be the way Apple would introduce such a service. It just doesn’t make sense in context.
I don’t think this is going to happen soon anyway. Schiller recently talked about how long it takes to download a full-length movie. He hyped up NetFlix instead.
Rentals suck. It will fail. That is the SJ strategy – let it fail and then negotiate movie dl sales.
Why is everyone treating Renting and Owning like mutually exclusive sales models? Why the hell could Apple not do both? I hope they do, as I want to rent most of the time… but buy my favorites and watch them over and over again! (In my opinion, it would be dumb to not do both.)
$2.99 to rent. $9.99 to own.
Think Secret is full of sh*t. This ain’t gonna happen…
$2.99 to rent ($1.99 would be better) and $9.99 to own (or the difference to “upgrade” from a rental).
Keep it cheap because the download will lack DVD quality and all the extras.