RUMOR: Apple iPhone, iPod touch to get wireless movie, TV show downloads

“A new rumor, complete with supposed screenshots, maintains that Apple is on the verge of allowing movie and TV show downloads directly from an iPhone or iPod touch,” Aidan Malley reports for AppleInsider. “According to the blogger reporting the purported find, a friend who downloaded the latest version of the iPhone app TwitterFon claims to have discovered three mobile ads from Apple that pointed to ‘iTunes Movies,’ ‘Tunes Movie Rentals’ and ‘iTunes TV.'”

“Rather than take the visitor to a website, however, tapping one of the ads is said to switch to the mobile iTunes client and shows what appears to be a work-in-progress video section of Apple’s mobile store. Viewers can browse genres and see featured items, but tapping the actual videos themselves produces a notice that the content is “not available.” Promos for episodes and movies are missing,” Malley reports.

“While the authenticity of the rumor hasn’t been corroborated outside of the seemingly real screenshots taken to show the new store portal’s existence, its appearance comes just as Apple is poised to introduce 802.11n WiFi to its handhelds,” Malley reports. “The wireless standard is about four times faster than the 802.11g the iPhone and iPod touch use today and would significantly shorten the time spent waiting for downloads that would otherwise be interminable with fast-enough Internet connections or less-than-ideal WiFi reception.”

Malley reports, “The blogger’s friend didn’t make any assertions as to whether or not videos would work over 3G, though carrier concerns about overloading the network would most likely keep paid content restricted to WiFi in the same way that video podcasts are restricted today.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]

Reader Feedback

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.