iTunes finally tops 1,000 movie rentals
Mon May 5, 2008 3:59PM EDT
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The milestone comes about two months late, but for Apple TV owners—myself included—it's a welcome development. Still, iTunes has a ways to go before it can catch up with the likes of Amazon Unbox and Vudu.
That's a substantial improvement over the 428 movie rentals available in early March—a number that fell well shy of the 1,000 rentals that Steve Jobs had promised by the end of February. (Jobs blamed the shortfall on delays in securing the proper digital distribution rights for various movies.)
Still, iTunes has a ways to go before it catches up with the likes of Amazon Unbox (more than 5,200 movies to rent, which you can watch on your TiVo) and Vudu (about 3,600 rentals as of early March, and probably many more by now [update: about 4,080, according to Vudu]).
And while iTunes has open up a substantial lead over the Xbox Video Marketplace's catalog of 300-odd movies, iTunes has yet to offer high-def TV episodes, which have been available on Xbox Live since its Thanksgiving 2006 launch.
And, while I'm at it, a couple more nitpicks. Apple TV could still use a movie wish list, a handy feature that's long been available on Vudu. And now that for-purchase-only movies are listed on Apple TV, there should be a way to filter search results for rentals only (personally, I have no interest in buying sub-SD quality movies from iTunes). Oh, and why can't you click on an actor's or director's name to see their other movies on iTunes? I have to say, Vudu still has Apple TV beat when it comes to browsing and searching for movies.
So, I'm curious: Does the number of movie rentals on iTunes matter to those of you still mulling an Apple TV (or any other movie set-top box)? Or is it more a matter of rental prices ($3.99 for new releases on iTunes, $2.99 for older titles) or other features?
Related:
1,000 rentals? iTunes finally makes it [Macworld, via Ars Technica]
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2 Posted by lkogan1968 on Mon May 5, 2008 8:17PM EDT Report Abuse
I have Netflix which I thought was terrific until Vudu appeared. With Vudu you can pick the category or cross filter drama plus romance, etc. You can ask it to filter (show you) only 4+ critic rated movies in your menu, so you never see a lousy movie. And it plays HD if I want it. And I can rent or buy (why pay so much more to them or anyone if you're only going to play it once?). I rent. Click, click to select you film (takes me about a minute to decide. Click, click and the movie starts in about a second. I hope that explains why I think digital downloads are terrific and you pointed out that Vudu is still out-engineering the Apple people. My guess is that it's going to be those two as the quality ones versus the cable people who don't really know much about technology, so maybe they can't help it. Back to Netflix and Blockbuster - they do give you the movies and the price is cheaper but its like comparing a Lexus versus a subcompact. There just is a huge difference. Carol
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3 Posted by sciencetroll@verizon.net on Tue May 6, 2008 5:46PM EDT Report Abuse
is it wrong for people to make retarded spam on yahoo tech?? It is an absolute yes. why do people do spam here. anyway i think its kind of sad that itunes only has 1000 rentals so far considering that its been out for a while.
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1 Posted by rogueist on Mon May 5, 2008 4:33PM EDT Report Abuse
I was pretty upset when renting the movies, until I figured out that my iPod had reset and was kicked out of HD mode. Now its cool - I can watch my TV shows when I want to, and I can watch movies in HD as well. Very cool!