“Apple Inc. has fallen substantially short of its target of having 1,000 movies available for rent on its Apple TV set-top box by the end of February, and is blaming studios for the discrepancy,” The Associated Press reports.
MacDailyNews Note: Beyond Apple TV, Apple also promised and failed to deliver “over 1,000 titles by the end of February” for iTunes Movie Rentals meant for viewing on Macs, PCs, all current generation iPods and/or iPhone.
“Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs told shareholders at the annual meeting Tuesday that he’s ‘not happy’ with the shortfall, according to the San Jose Mercury News,” AP reports. “Jobs said it’s taking movie studios more time than expected to get approval from various rights holders, the paper reported.”
Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr on Wednesday said the company hopes to have 1,000 movies available ‘soon,” AP reports.
“Apple was closer to meeting another of its stated goals: 100 high-definition movies available on Apple TV. On Wednesday, 98 were offered,” AP reports.
Full article here.
It doesn’t matter whose fault it is — Apple promised it in their press release, not the Hollywood studios. Don’t promise unless you know you can deliver, Mr. Jobs. Hasn’t Apple TV (a great device, by the way) been unnecessarily and unfairly hamstrung enough?
Here’s a shocking suggestion, Apple: Get the content secured and get some Apple TV ads on television that demonstrate how easy it is to rent popular movies. You should have had a movie-themed Apple TV ad running multiple times during The Academy Awards, but you blew that golden opportunity for this year.
Our Apple TV units wow everyone who sees them in action. As in, they all say, “Wow, I had no idea Apple offered this! I want one!” So, how about showing Apple TV to the rest of the world, Apple?
It’s truly sad that mac users don’t understand business. Even MDN wants is being bratty.
Too bad Jobs trusted the studios to come through. I’m sure the studios told them they’d be able to do it or else it wouldn’t have been said.
This one falls all on the shoulders of the movie studios.
There is life beyond the aqua desktop…
Wow MDN… you are just sooooo smart. You thought of that idea all by yourself before anyone else did.
You’re the answer to get my AAPL shares back above 200 points.
Just let Steve do his Jobs. There’s a reason whey he’s where he is and you’re running a blog.
Amen! That’s is what I keep thinking! Get a life! Shit happens and it isn’t always going to be Apples fault.
Although I still think that the AppleTV is absolutely ridiculous (I don’t want to spend $229 just so I can then rent 24-hour-limited movies at $3 or $4 a pop), I do agree that if Apple wants to sell more of these, they absolutely need to ADVERTISE THIS PRODUCT ON TELEVISION! People don’t even know that this product exists!
If Apple waited on the 1000 movies to be ready before announcing Apple TV 2 then people would still complain that Apple was late to the game. Your wrong MDN.
All this did not stop me from renting at least 10 movies already and there are many more left to rent.
MacBill I gotta tell ya we love our ATV. The HD rentals (at least the four we have viewed) beat anything we get from either our Directv or Comcast HD movies. Way better for us than the mail order and blockbuster stuff we used to do. Don’t knock it till you try it.
I have to give MDN props for not siding with Apple this time. For ONCE they looked at reality and not through Apple colored glasses.
Good job MDN!!
According to David Pogue, Vudu has 5,000 movies.
What’s the difference?
they absolutely need to ADVERTISE THIS PRODUCT ON TELEVISION!
Kinda like when people marketed cars via horseback, no?
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Gotta wonder how much the networks want to speed their own obsolescence…
To Vanillacide:
I’m so glad no one has suggested that before. Thanks for your clearer insight.
We’ve missed the contributions of Linux Guy and Mac Prodigal Son for some time now. I hope for the best.
Are people actually complaining about this? I mean, in a couple weeks, when the studios get caught up on their encoding, who will care?
Is it just me, or the only people who parse Steve’s words so carefully, are tech analysts.
I think, Mr. Jobs is showing a bit of patience here with the studios. The studios may feel they have his hands tied this time around and he has to oblige to their dance bit at every whim. But I doubt that Steve has shown his entire hand. Seriously, were Apple to unleash the ATV capable of playing every torrented divx, xvid, xor, avi, wmv and what not out of the box including many of the hacks already available, and a built in Applesque iTorrent service to top it off, you may see the same movie moguls begging him back to the dark side.
😮 )
Hybrid with a small footprint of (Apple TV+MacMini+Airport Extreme) + iTorrent = dorm room domination today, the world tomorrow.
MDN Magic Word is ‘range’. You go connect the dots on that.
@Ampar
Linux Guy and Mac Prodigal Son is a member of the forums at theMacObserver and last posted there february 8th, fyi.
Getting approval $$$ is it that difficult? Pennies on the dollar. Digitize all the movies and watch the $$$ roll in.
As I said before…
Lets see it takes about an hour for a computer (not mine) to rip a movie from a DVD. So a 1000 movies would take about 42 days (on _1_ computer working around the clock) to convert movies for download. I am just guessing here, but I believe that
Apple or ( the movie studios) have more than one computer to devote to this task.
Mmmm… Just imagine if:
1 computer could have done the job in 42 days
10 computers could have done the job in 4.2 days
100 computers could have done the job in 10 hours
200 computers could have done the job in 5 hours
Yep, missed it by THAT much!
For anyone that thinks, for a second, that MDN would be better at managing Apple than Steve Jobs, well there is a job at Microsoft for you matey…
For everyone else, Apple is cementing (that’s right CEMENTING) it’s ownership of the video rental market slowly and carefully. Steve Jobs has to ensure he doesn’t frighten the horses (film studios) and that he can deliver the bandwidth to support large numbers of downloads. None of this happens quickly – hence Apple TV is downplayed at every opportunity.
It will fly – but all in good time.
In the meantime, sit back and watch a master at work
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I don’t think I remember Jobs saying “We PROMISE to have…
1000 movies is just a goal. Doesn’t mean the goal will be reached.
I’m a Creative Director for a large company. Why Apple hasn’t gotten this thing out there on the air waves is beyond me. If our company had a product like this, and our marketing team wasn’t behind it, we would all be looking for jobs right now. This is a HUGE MISTAKE to not market this thing. MDN is right on this one. Apple, don’t be dumb here, you could solidify your dominance in the living room if you get the word out. C’mon guys, you know better!
I don’t rememeber this argument from MDN when Leopard was pushed back. The movie studios suck and they’re playing with Apple. Too bad the studios can’t see the profits they could have if they work a little with Apple, but hey, politics as usual.
I’m just glad they’ve got ‘Changing Lanes’ on there. I hope they concentrate on the whole Ben Affleck catalogue – Pearl Harbor, Paycheck, Gigli, Jersey Girl – these are the kind of films that will set iTunes apart as, well, something…
I’d say they’re holding off on the ad blitz until they have all their ducks in order. LOTS of movies in the queue is definitely a huge part of the equation here. If they sell a product with skimpy content, it will hurt their image. Be patient, it’s all coming. If it were easy, it would have already been done.
Anyone notice the few titles that they have added are RENT ONLY? WTF? Why are they not available for purchase?
I don’t rent movies, I buy them.
The prices are TOO HIGH for the stingy restrictions.
There is way too much low-brow sh*t in the new releases.
Handbrake and a $9.99 DVD is ‘Mo Better than a DRM laden download or a rental that costs almost half for 24 hours.
As the saying goes: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Apple fans should know by now that Steve and Apple are always trying as hard as humanly possible to do what they say they will do. So give it a rest, MDN. There’s no reason to come on with this “don’t promise unless you can deliver!” bullcrap. If Apple never took chances, none of us would be sitting where we are right now.
Americans and their Presidential elections.
Last election it was a clear choice between opposites.
Very divisive.
The next time it’s shaping up to be a three way race between a liberal black man, a liberal white woman and, on the other side, a liberal white man.
No real choice and yet it will still be divisive.
Will America vote for a black man or a white woman or will it hold it’s nose and fail to punish the Republicans?
No mater who wins, the country will have a liberal President.
Why vote at all?