Maylin
Back in January, Apple unveiled movie rentals on the iTunes Store with much fanfare. Most customers of course do not want to own the movie. They just want to see it and digital downloads are just plain convenient. However, the 30-day delay quirk had many customers annoyed and was the reason for dwindling interest. The movies had a thirty-day lead-time on DVD before being available on the iTunes Store. Moreover, most of the new movies were available for rent and not for purchase. Today, Apple set out to fix them.
Apple today, announced that major film studio and independent movies would now be available for purchase on iTunes on the very day of the DVD release. These studios include the prominent set of 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios to name a few.
Apple also said that its movie catalogue now consisted of over a thousand five hundred movies, two hundred of which were available in High definition formats. Apple’s digital distribution outlet has now been absolved of its handicap and is posing a major threat and competition to the major movie outlets like Blockbuster. Blockbuster now faces stiff competition from Apple that would allow customers to get new titles immediately without even having to leave their couches. Having removed the obstacles of thirty-day limit, paucity of titles and variety, Apple has now established itself as a class apart as far as the iTunes store is concerned. It waits to be seen what the competition does to fend for itself and save itself from Apple’s all pervasive throttle.
May 4, 2008
I don’t really see the threat, to be honest. I’ve never really been much of a fan of downloading movies because, let’s face it, computers aren’t infallible. In the middle of a download, something can happen. And what if the ITunes website store is overloaded? I like the idea, personally, that I can still visit a website, actually create a queue for our movies we want to see, then have the discs shipped to us in very good condition to watch on normal DVD players on television screens like we’re meant to. Netflix still rules the roost.
May 5, 2008
Yeah I agree. I personally use the Blockbuster online rental service (so I can still go to the Blockbuster store if I’m in a hurry to see something) to rent movies. Too much can happen when downloading anything off the internet. I definitely do not think iTunes is going to be major competition to Netflix, Blockbuster, or any of the other major DVD rental companies.
May 6, 2008
I remember when the movie rentals were first introduced to the market. Many of my online friends avail of this advantage but they were just disappointed to find out that they can’t find most of the new movies in the movie industry. This is the reason why I don’t like being the first on everything. It is just a test entry.
May 6, 2008
Another way Netflix outshines the competition. Selection. There’s about 100,000 movies available from them the last time I checked. That’s more than some video retail store chains offer! If Apple thinks it can put a dent into something that big, guess again.
Maybe ITunes should make a deal through NetFlix. 
May 10, 2008
I still like Netflix…but my boyfriend and I do rent movies sometimes on itunes. The 30-day limit is what stopped us from doing it more often because we’ll download a movie and then with our work schedules we don’t get to watch it. Also another downfall is that once you start watching the movie you only have 24 hours to finish it. What happens when you can’t finish the movie in the 24 hour time period? It gets deleted! That means you just wasted like $4.
May 24, 2008
I don’t think this will be very profitable. There are way too many places that are doing this. There are businesses that are specifically specialized in this. Also, with the piracy rate increasing it doesn’t seem like a very smart move by Apple. But there are great minds behind it so I think they will manage to do something with it.