“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
Rental makes sense for movies. People are comfortable with the concept. Steve Jobs is too smart to not realize this fact. I sense that any attempt to negotiate an iTunes music style “one-price” a la carte sales structure was a ploy to get the best possible “rates” for the rentals. He made the media company execs believe they had “won” a major concession in exchange for better rental conditions, when that’s what Apple really expected and wanted all along.
Why does rental make sense? Because in the physical world, there are thousands and Blockbusters, Hollywood Video, and local mom-and-pop video rental stores (there are no music rental stores, by comparison). Some people do buy their movies, but renting is the way most people consume their movies these days. Unlike music, where most people buy their songs to keep, consumers are familiar with the concept of renting movies. They prefer it to buying. So it makes perfect sense for Apple to offer the digital equivalent of a movie rental store. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple went one step further and offered the Netflix-like “all you can consume for one monthly flat rate” scheme, since that model has also been popular in the physical world.
According to rumors iphone shoulda came out in january.
instead all we got was a stupid announcement that “queer eye for the straight guy” show was going to be put into ipod. amazing.
I already pay enough for my HD digital cable service. I won’t be renting any movies. If a movie comes out and is really worth seeing, then i go see it where it is meant to be seen, in the theater
It’s funny how emotional people get over this. To me, i dunno, it seems pretty cool. I can rent a movie without having to drive or wait for it in the mail. Pretty cool. I guess the quality is what worries me. TV shows are fine at lower quality, but movies have to be better.
We are also probably making the mistake of saying (rent or buy) because what we are really talking about is (Under 5 bucks or over 10) What I mean by this is, if Apple was able to sell individual movies for $5, this would be the only place that you could do this… and they would be a niche player that many people would flock to.
What if they do something totally different… like SELL full length movies for $5 a piece? That would get consumers talking!
With all these loads of good news and the best AAPL can do is ad just $2 to their share?
Trust me, something is fishy here… its gonna fall below $50 soon. and when it drops it wont stop at at $48 at either. no matter who tries to press on a resistance at $50, the triggers will already be triggered. and sell orders will start pouring in globally.
The DIVX format failed at this before. Hopefully Apple can do this the right way. Hope they have a pay to own model also.
So long as this is NOT a monthly subscription fee, and simply a pay per view, I’m all over this.
90% don’t buy movies anyways (guessing on the number), and when people do, it is a classic like Sound of Music, etc…
Rentals makes perfect sense.
To not have a purchase option? That will come with Blue-Ray and HD abilities in 6-12 months time.
Correct..
a 2 hour media experience..with characters, a plot, that requires a screen to experience and your full attention is
VERY DIFFERENT
from music which takes a few minutes, can function as background, and can be consumed anywhere on multiple devices such as an ipod, home stereo, or car radio..
While some people DO have massive movie collections…most never will..
The rental model makes perfect sense…and will extend Apple’s dominance.
Again, the only way that I would purchase movies online is if I could burn them to DVD.
Renting movies may be a diffecent story…. maybe.
So will this rental service deliver 480p/4:3, 480p/16:9 or 720p/16:9? If it isn’t at least 480p widescreen with new, 16:9 video iPods also introduced, this service is destined to fail. It would be most attractive to consumers if it were 720p widescreen — HDTV owners do NOT want to watch 4:3 content on their expensive new, widescreen displays…
I also think any movie download sales service would require Intel-based Macs and displays that each have some sort of unannounced, built-in HDCP content protection. So, we may not see such a movie sales model for a few years, until the PowerPC Macs are all out of the sales pipeline and perhaps even ready to be retired. My guess is that Apple would need a sizable, installed base of Intel-based Macs to make an online sales system work…
Divx failed because people hated that model and it was to expensive to watch one time and then toss it away. This is the same concept only worse as you won’t get the quality or the extra’s. So I really hope this rumor is totally false as it is a really bad idea.
What is the price? .99 okay. 9.99 bad.
I must not fit into the mold on this subject. I absolutely love movies, and I love watching the same movie multiple times. I own about 250 DVDs and watch quite a few of them over and over. For the videophiles out there, Apple needs a download to own model, BUT they should include a “subscription service” similar to the multi-pass that is in place for tv shows. That way people will pay a certani amount of money and have download rights to 5+ movies or something like that. What do you guys think?
Who wastes their time watching movies on a tiny screen?
If I want to see a movie I go to the theater and see it.
Do you think any other OS proponents write to their calendar app (iCal) the date and time of Balmer’s speeches like we do for our Steve’s keynote at WWDC?
I doubt it!
its not a waste of time if you watch it on a 40+ inch HDTV. HDTVs are going to be ubiqitous in the next few years. Standard Definition tvs are already getting antiquated.
I agree with geo. With iPods, it was okay to have a lower audio quality because the average headphones and ambient noise make the lower quality irrelevant. Most people just don’t spend big bucks on true high quality audio gear. But a lot of people are buying bigger and bigger HiDef TVs and when you put low (or even average) quality video on a big screen, it looks awful. Especially when you consider that BlueRay DVDs are (hopefully) not that far off in the future.
I just don’t think the infrastructure is quite there yet for movie downloads to become a big thing.
I love this! Either way, something will happen on August 7th that I will greatly enjoy. Either an iTunes movie service will be introduced, which would be awesome, or ThinkSecret makes a complete ass of itself, which would be just as awesome!
Of course, the conference isn’t for a few weeks, which gives ThinkStupid plenty of time to puss out and “revise” the rumor. Y’know, like the touchscreen iPod, which ThinkSecret keeps pushing into the future like rumor vaporware.
That’s where the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease, or as Denny and I say, Mad Cow, comes in handy. You buy the DVD, watch it and a week or two later, watch it over again.
It never becomes stale for me, I think.
Actually, I think anything can be announced at WWDC. As I recall, the iSight was announced at WWDC a few years ago – and the iSight was very much a consumer product.
Apple will probably release the movie program when it’s ready and WWDC will be good enough a venue if Apple is ready now.
The issue for me is simple. Apple’s program will have to compete with the bargain bins at the big electronic stores as well as the used DVD shops. I generally pick up a handful of cheap DVDs before going on an overseas business trip. Everything in the $5 to $9.99 price range and I’m happy. No way would I consider an expensive ($15.99 to $19.99) DVD for these trips. My only exception is a DVD for the grandkids – they will re-watch DVDs on a daily basis. Can you say “The Wiggles”? Aghhh!
Renting something for watching at home is possible, but it would have to be in the $5 range (or less) before I would give it a look.
Actually, I think anything can be announced at WWDC. As I recall, the iSight was announced at WWDC a few years ago – and the iSight was very much a consumer product.
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It’s not so much consumer vs. non-consumer as it is Mac vs. non-Mac related.
The iSight Cam was introduced at WWDC, but it is a Mac-related device, and it was introduced alongside the PowerMac G5.
Apple’s Cupertino offices have two official divisions: Their iPod (music related) division, and their computer (Mac-related) division.
WWDC is a conference for developers. Apples product introductions are always related to their computer (Mac-related) division.
This will work if Apple can beat Cable and video rental store prices and if the video is playable full screen on TV sets. Apple could sell a low cost USB/WiFi box to connect a Mac or video iPod to any TV.
Watching a movie or a TV show on a video iPod is cool when your on the go or away from home but while at home, a TV makes much more sense.
Apple could make this work better than any other company out there, including whatever Microsoft has up their sleeve.
Apple is obviously “leaking” a lot of bad information to Think Secret, probably to get back at them for the trial. And Think Secret is lapping it up despite the outrageousness of it.