On August 7th, during the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference, Steve Jobs is expected to announce that a new movie rental service will be delivered via the iTunes Music Store.
Apple had been fighting with the major studios to allow customers the option to own their movie downloads, but it would appear that that battle has been lost. Instead, each download will be coded with a date stamp that will restrict playback. At this point it is not known whether this stamp will limit the number of plays or offer unlimited viewing for a finite period of time. Either way, the move will end up being inaccessible.
Personally, I feel that renting movies via digital downloading is the way to go and I applaud Apple for taking this step. Once again, brick and mortar operations like Blockbuster have been left in the dust when it comes to getting to market first with new technology.
First it was Netflix and now it’s iTunes. As far as I’m concerned, anything that cuts into Blockbuster’s business is a move in the right direction.
Posted by Sean
