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.]
Oh No! My Windoze machine won’t run Windoze XP software on Windoze Vista! Actually when I was using Windoze 1 in 3 games I brought that said they would run on XP didn’t – funny that.
Anyway – I believe it’s stated cleary in the store that they only run on those iPods – I could be wrong though.
“Noone expects a first gen 5GB black and white iPod to play videos.”
Ah ah ah, never underestimate the stupidity of the populace.
“you should update all your white plastic gadgets once a year as Jobs commands.”
This isn’t limited to Apple or even technology companies. If you want the “latest and greatest” of anything, you should update EVERYTHING once a year. Even some car companies are creating .5 model runs so anyone who bought a 2006 is missing out on features added to 2006.5 (which of course will be superseded by 2007, to be rapidly updated with 2007.5 etc. etc.)
If there is no limitation that can be corrected with a simple firmware upgrade then Apple is guilty of not providing an easy fix for older Pod owners. Question is, if there is no limitation why is Apple making owners of older iPods having to purchase another iPod? The answer isn’t customer service.
LorD1776 is registered. Ooooh, isn’t that special. What do you want, a cookie? How does making yer alias a registered name make you more intelligent? Yer still as anonymous as anyone else threading here. If you had no qualms about broadcasting yer identity you would thread yer real name, address, and telephone number wouldn’t you? Why not, fanboi?
If anyone wants to watch a color film in black-and-white, isn’t that the customer’s choice? Who the hell is Apple that they feel obligated to dictate to anyone what they can and cannot watch? How about those who Think Different and want to watch films in B&W;?
Ooops, you don’t think like we tell you to think. Now, toe the party line! We refuse to provide the firmware upgrade, get used to it and fork over your cash.
But I only watch B&W;films, that’s my niche.
We don’t cater to niches, you bitches. STFU and give us your money!
As the owner of a 5th Gen iPod, I don’t see the point of copying iTunes video to a camcorder as I can rip a DVD or download a higher quality torrent that will play just fine.
If Apple made an iTouch with a 80 or 160 GB hard drive I already own it. Until then the 5th Gen will do just fine.
All this confusion and complicated bullshit is going to turn people off to Apple eventually, just like it does to Windows.
If you ask me, Apple should have chosen a better name for the ‘non-touch’ iPod than “iPod classic”. When I think “iPod classic”, I think “Coca-Cola Classic”, i.e. a new name for the old formula. It’s not surprising that many people who own a 5G iPod think they already have an “iPod classic”!
The iPod classic’s physical appearance is virtually identical to the 5G iPod. I originally thought Apple was just rebranding the 5G and changing the size of the scroll wheel a little. I kept waiting for the software update that would give my 5G CoverFlow and such. When it didn’t come, it sank in that the iPod classic was a completely new animal.
They really should have chosen another name. It would have prevented a lot of confusion.
——RM
Apple is free to make the rules as they see fit (or tailor them to the demands of the studios as needed). But in defense of those, like me, who made this same mistake, it was easy to misread the announcement. The announcement referred to “video-enabled iPods,” which my 5G iPod certainly is; I was led astray by enthusiasm and didn’t notice the qualifications at first. It took me a few minutes after renting my first movie to figure out why it wasn’t transferring to my iPod. (Once I figured it out, I happily watched the movie on my iMac; I didn’t feel like I’d been ripped off, just confused.)
The info page on movie rentals at http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/movies.html makes no reference to iPod restrictions. It IS confusing that you can watch movies you buy on your iPod, but not movies you rent. Apple could have made this clearer.
@Tad Davis:
Right on the money. Yes, it’s confusing that a device called iPod with Video, on which you can watch purchased movies, does not play rented movies from the same store.
It’s understood that Apple does specify this, but not so obviously as they could, and they should explain their reasons.
@Old Mac Man,
Here here. But, anytime you try to work with the entertainment industry things always tend to go from complicated to ridiculous, so what’s Apple supposed to do. They want to, and need to (and needed to be one of the first successful ones), be in the pc and hand held media devices markets that they are in if they want to remain a viable company into the foreseeable future.
If Apple were to just focus on personal computing and hand held computing, which I wish they could do, I don’t believe they would be anywhere near where they are today.
I understand technology moves and some get left behind, but where is the line? Do you buy a video ipod today, an hour later, two seconds later.. it’s out of date. Sept 2007 seems a little rediculous for a product to go out of date. There are a lot of people who agree with this. There are a lot of people who think this is ok. Hopefully there are enough people who feel this is unacceptable and make apple think and not alienate it’s consumer base. For me I’ll remember this the next time I see an exciting new apple product whith premium pricing. I’ll discount it by the frustration I will remember by this experience……
HAHA! So what was that about ipod sales causing the stock to drop?
HAHA! Here’s your fix.
(yes, I know it’s not the complete solution… I am just pointing out the irony)
When will the update be available for Apple TV? It’s been two weeks. Apple late AGAIN??? Can I rent from iTunes and stream to Apple TV in the interim. Even the geeks at the Apple store didn’t know the answer to that one!!!
Mark,
How do you propose Apple should introduce new products? As soon as a new product hits the shelves, the older one is obsolete. Or, are you suggesting Apple should never introduce new features? As some people here has suggested, there must be a valid reason (hardware-based) that the 5G iPod is not supported. You can still watch the rented video on your TV (Apple TV) or your computer. Is this nearly as bad as Microsoft pulling the rug from under play-for-sure with the introduction of the Zune? I haven’t seen a food of articles complaining about that! Why is there so much criticism directed at Apple? Are we to expect people complaining that the expected to find an actual TV in the Apple TV box they just purchased?
As a 5G iPod owner, I can understand the disappointment at finding out that your iPod, which will play TV shows and other iTunes video content, won’t play the new rentals. I myself was hoping perhaps that this would be a way to get rented movies on the TV without plunking down $$ for an Apple TV.
Once I read this though (I think it was the day of the announcement, though it took some effort to find a media outlet that was actually technologically competent and reported facts and details correctly) I was not overly surprised or upset.
My 5G iPod is almost 3 years old now. It still does what I bought it for great, which is mostly playing music.
I think anyone who doesn’t have an expectation of obsolescence coming for the consumer electronics they buy (in little ways soon after purchase, and eventually to the point of total incompatibility), they are just setting themselves up for frustration.
“LorD1776 is registered. Ooooh, isn’t that special. What do you want, a cookie? How does making yer alias a registered name make you more intelligent?”
Thanks Phred.
I was just saying that people can suffer from upgrade fatigue. Fanboys aside there are only so many times you can get somebody to rebuy essentially the same product.
“LorD1776 is registered. Ooooh, isn’t that special. What do you want, a cookie? How does making yer alias a registered name make you more intelligent?”
Thanks Phred.
You don’t answer the question. You thank me for no good reason.
I reckon this proves my point that having a registered alias does not guarantee one is intelligent, eh?
Phred,
You’re right. You’re always right. I admit I can’t compete with you on an intellectual level. Isn’t that what you want to hear?