January 15, 2008

MacWorld: Steve Jobs Announces iTunes Movie Rentals, Apple TV Take 2

Want a rent a movie from iTunes? Get the iTunes 7.6 update for both Windows and Macs here!

It seems that the "leaked" crib notes for today's MacWorld keynote by Steve Jobs were either fake, dated, or a brilliant marketing scam by Apple. As rumored, the iTunes movie rental service was announced, with Jobs claiming "every major studio has signed on to some degree". Those studios include MGM, Lion's Gate, Sony, and Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros., Miramax, and Fox. Jobs strongly emphasized the depth of their movie offerings promising 1000 films by the end of February. A definite drawback to the service is that iTunes will not have titles available until 30 days after they have been released on DVD.

Rentals can be viewed on Mac's and PC's are easily ported to mobile devices such as iPhones and iPods. Library titles will be available for $2.99 and new releases $3.99, titles are downloaded instantly and rentals last for 24 hours. The rental service is available as of today, only in the United States, via an iTunes update. International access will apparently come sometime in the future.

An updated Apple TV was also the focus of rumormongers for the past month or so, and sure enough, the Apple "Take 2" was debuted. Appropriately named given the "failure" of the Apple TV in the past year, the Take 2 version of the Apple TV requires no computer and has built-in rental support for the iTunes service accessible through the press of one button. The price has also been cut to $229 moving the set a little closer to the mainstream market. Other new Apple TV features include Dolby 5.1, built-in support for video and audio podcasts, flickr support, and an upgrade for the existing Apple TV to Take 2 functionality.

Via Techcrunch