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January 17, 2008

software

First Look: iTunes movie rentals

Posted Jan. 17, ’08, 11:31 AM PT by Cyrus Farivar
Category | Software

Yesterday, Aayush regaled you with details about iTunes movie rentals from Daring Fireball’s John Gruber.

Today, however, Macworld’s own Peter Cohen kicked the tires and took movie rentals for a spin.

The verdict?

iTunes movie rentals are unlikely to appeal to everyone, particularly people who still prefer to own their media as well as others who have no qualms about taking what they can get via BitTorrent. But for those users who are more interested in an easy, straightforward way to download premium movies that can be watched on multiple devices without a return trip to the video store, iTunes rentals will fit the bill. Despite a few opening-day glitches, which Apple is likely to smooth out, the new service is surprisingly robust and easy to use.


6 Comments

Aristophanes said:

Far too limiting and confusing. Essentially in many cases you have to buy or rent and only THEN can you find out on which devices the content can work on.

It's really not Apple's fault (blame the myopic studios), but I suspect the customer support system and credit card chargebacks are going to be heavily burdened.

The layout is very good, but does it compete with BitTorrent? No.

January 17, 2008 3:49 PM
mrfearless47 Author Profile Page said:

Color me a bit confused. Right now I can see no way to use the "rental" feature with my Apple TV (I have two of them). Just as an experiment I downloaded a rental movie and cannot for the life of me figure out how to view the rental on my Apple TV. Itunes supports the rental feature, but there is no software on the Apple TV to suck the rentals from iTunes to ATV. What am I missing? Am I supposed to watch these things on my monitor or my iPod? Not on your life. The rental will sit there until the ATV software is upgraded. In the meantime, say what?

January 17, 2008 6:13 PM
apernett Author Profile Page said:

@mrfearless47, the fact that you already can't sync your rentals to your AppleTV is that the upgrade for it isn't yet available until two weeks later after Macworld, so you are stuck for now to watch your reantals in your Mac, PC, iPod Touch, your iPhone or iPod Classic, ah! and your 3rd gen iPod Nano...

January 18, 2008 5:50 AM
apernett Author Profile Page said:

@ mrfearless47, the fact that you can't sync your rentals to your AppleTV is that the upgrade for it will available not now but in two weeks, basically meaning that you are stuck with your mac or current generation iPod to watch your rentals...

January 18, 2008 5:57 AM
krye said:

I for one will opt to rent from iTunes before hitting BitTorrent. There's nothing worse than waiting 3 days for a hot movie to download to find it's not even the movie you wanted and that it's porn or something.

For a lousy $3 I can have the movie now, and I know that I am getting what I paid for. And, if it's worth watching again, then I can go ahead and buy the movie on DVD.

So, $3 for a try-before-you-buy isn't so bad at all.

January 18, 2008 6:22 AM
mrfearless47 Author Profile Page said:

Well. Thankfully the upgrade to the ATV is due out before my 30 days are up. I could watch it on my Classic or Gen 3 iPod, but I'd prefer to keep my eyes thank you. And, I only rented a single movie, so it isn't like I'm out a lot if I have to watch on something other than my 46" Flat Panel.

January 18, 2008 6:40 AM

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