In a largely expected announcement, Steve Jobs unveiled
during its MacWorld keynote iTunes Movie Rentals, an initiative with which
Apple hopes to revolutionize the digital movie business in the same way it did
with the music industry.
Apple has managed to convince all the major movies studios
to sign distribution deals and the movies from 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney
Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount,
Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema will be available on
iTunes.
Unlike the music tunes, the movies could be rented for $2.99
for library titles and $3.99 for new releases. Also, iTunes will offer high
definition versions for one dollar more.
Faithful to Apple’s mantra to bind the hardware with
software, Jobs also unveiled Apple TV Take Two, a device which will offer full
access to iTunes Movie Rentals, with no computer required.
But even with all these arguments, will Apple be capable to
repeat the success registered of iTunes Music Store?
Hard to tell! Back in 2003, iTunes was born under different
circumstances. Unlike iTunes Movie Rentals, iTunes Music was largely built on
the previous huge success of iPod.
Now Jobs is trying a whole different approach. He hopes that
a successful movie rentals business will boost the sales of Apple TV, a gadget
that failed in terms of expected sales.
On the other hand, when it was launched, iTunes Music didn’t
have any serious competition. Now, iTunes Movie Rentals is somehow late to the
party. There are already digital stores such as Amazon Unbox, Netflix and Movielink
and movies are also distributed by the cable companies or retail giants.
For example, just a day before Apple announced its own
movie-rental business, Netflix said it decided to lift time limits on movies
and TV shows watched over the Web. Netflix also announced that this new feature
would be available with no extra charge to all subscribers already on one of
its unlimited monthly video rental plans.
Until the recent decision, the rental company had limited
the numbers of hours of movies and television shows accessed over Internet
connections that it made available to users under regular subscription plans,
priced $8.99 and above.
On the other hand, Apple will also compete with traditional
methods of movie distribution and, perhaps more importantly, with the new Blu
Ray format.
It’s certain that Apple has taken into account all obstacles
that it may face in unfolding its plan to take over the digital entertainment
world and it will be interesting to see where iTunes Movie Rentals will be in
six months.
