This seems to be a day for rumors. In this report from Think Secret, apparently someone has let it slip that Apple will announce a plan to offer movies for rent via the ever-popular iTunes store. The announcement if it comes, will be during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, scheduled in the next three weeks. They have already cut deals with several studios, namely, Universal, Paramount, Disney etc., and they look to have more joining up. Of course, you can't have a rental without some sort of DRM controls. The insiders do not know what form this will be as of yet, whether it will have a time out or a select number of uses.
"We knew that Steve [Jobs] saw the rental model as the only viable option," a person familiar with the situation said. "We knew it was a matter of time before he signed on." "The subscription business makes sense for everybody. We'll all make money. But more importantly, it's a different beast from music and no one'”not even Steve Jobs'”is blind to that," the insider said. |
Although I have nothing against people making money, these downloads are going to have to be quite cheap to get people to use their bandwidth in order to grab a movie. If you want to rent, you have so many choices already, even mail based solutions like Blockbuster will be a very attractive alternative.
We
just have to wait and see what sort of a product and what what price it
will be offered in order to make a comparison. It is obvious that both Apple and
Microsoft are thinking of ways to bring home PC's and entertainment together. Do
you think Microsoft has similar plans in the works? Special thanks to jef195 who used our news submit to tell us about this story as well!
Source: Think Secret
