“Apple Inc. is preparing to put movies in the cloud, entering a market in which it may be both competitor and ally to a similar offering backed by most Hollywood studios,” Ben Fritz reports for The Los Angeles Times.
“Representatives of the iPhone and iPad maker have been meeting with studios to finalize deals that would allow consumers to buy movies through iTunes and access them on any Apple device, according to knowledgeable people who requested anonymity because the discussions are private,” Fritz reports. “The service is expected to launch in late 2011 or early 2012.”
Fritz reports, “Though studios have spent years building Ultraviolet, people familiar with the thinking of several studio executives say they’d be happy to see Apple join as well, since it accounts for 66% of online movie sales and rentals… Under the plan Apple is proposing, users could stream movies they buy via iTunes on any device the company makes, such as the Apple TV, iPhones and iPads, as well as on PCs.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Big deals and many extended negotiations are required in order for us to be able to play what we paid for wherever we want to play it. That, dear friends, is as ridiculous and stupid as when the music labels insisted on it. Smart content peddlers GTF out of the way after the sale. Then you have Hollywood.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Gideon R.” for the heads up.]
Don’t worry, Blockbuster & it’s Flash based movie streaming service will win this iOS war, oh wait, no it won’t.
Hopefully they iron out the kinks and add services that make it useful to those of us who want to keep our old email addresses and use documents other than those in iWork.
I love apple but the whole icloud/ios5 upgrade process has been a nightmare.
When they offer DRM-free HD content at a fair price, I’ll pony up. Not holding my breath.
If the auto industry worked like movie studios:
When you purchase a vehicle you can only drive it within a five mile radius of your home. You cannot allow others to drive it either as the vehicle is for personal use. If your friend wants a ride, they need to purchase their own vehicle. Picking up a friend in your vehicle is considered illegal sharing which can lead to a fine and imprisonment. Disabling the DRM (drivable radius maintainer) is also considered illegal.
3 Reasons I will stick with Bluray & rental:
1. Chance to get 7.1 DTS sound.
2. More than 24 hours to watch (I would rent much more if I got 26 hours or and much more if I got 72 hours). I’m a busy person — no time to sit down to watch an entire movie in one sitting.
3. Why pay $19.99 to own a movie I will probably watch once.
Now I feel after enabling iCloud that the 5 GB limit should be per device rather than per account. Cos I am not able to take backup of my iPad and iPhone to iCloud. It’s either iPad or the iPhone . Yes I know we can buy more storage if we need, but then Apple could have credited the apple fan boys who own each and every device of Apple like me 🙂