Apple Likely Close To Offering Movie Rentals

By Ed Oswald | Published November 9, 2007, 12:03 PM

Apple has been repeatedly rumored to be close to offering movie rentals from the iTunes Music Store, and one blogger claims to be holding the answer as to when this may happen.

Evan DiBiase, a student at Carnegie Mellon University, says that while doing a dump of the strings from the old version of iTunes to compare them with the new ones, he discovered several new strings.

In the new 7.5 upgrade just released this week, several new strings pop up. They are: rental-content, rental-bag, rbsync, source-rental-info, dest-rental-info, getvodaccountselectionlist, GET VOD ACCOUNT SELECTION LIST, and supportsRentals.

These strings seem to suggest that Apple may finally be ready to add rentals to its list of available content options on iTunes. It also may help the Cupertino company to finally have a value proposition for one of its most overlooked products.

"I would sure get more use out of my Apple TV," DiBiase wrote Wednesday.

The first rumors about movie rentals began to surface just before the company announced plans to offer feature length films through iTunes. Rentals may also be another way to get many of the companies still unwilling to sell movies through the service to jump on board.

Some analysis believe that this is what Apple needs. "We've been predicting that Apple was going to provide rentals for about five months now," Blackfriars Communications analyst Carl Howe said. "It will give a nice bump to Apple TV sales over the holidays, which we had also predicted would remain low until this release."

Comments

I don't know about watching a movie on a little 2" screen at a 320x240 resolution (at least on the iPod screen anyway). It doesn't seem worth it to me. At least you can rent HD movies on Xbox Live MP, or from Netflix if you have an HD-DVD player.

Score: 0

|

Could subscription music be far behind?

Score: 0

|

Its the next logical step. NetFlix has been doing it for months.

Score: 0

|

Oh yes, the highest plan offers what 22 hours of online viewing, so 11 movies. Yea sounds good, but their are other companies offering unlimited viewing for $15.00 just a much more limited catalog. Something Apple doesn't seem to suffer is a limited catalog. I have netflix as a college student and 22 hours just isn't enough time. Most of my dvd watching is from rentals, where the quality and sound isn't slightly above crap (netflix web quality)

Score: 0

|

its about time, i've been able to rent/own movies from Xbox for quite some time now.

Score: 0

|

rent... as far as i know xbox live MP doesn't sell movies.. just sells TV shows.. and rents movies...

Score: 0

|

Nokia: Android? Are you crazy?

Rumors about new Android devices abound, but Nokia squashes this one.

What's Now: Drenched with 'Purple Ra1n,' iPhone users caught eating 'redsn0w'

Plus: Symantec and McAfee go to war, and what's LucasArts building in its top-secret, moon-shaped orbital facility?

Can Linux do BitLocker better than Windows 7?

Betanews kicks off a new series with a look at how the Linux operating system's FDE stacks up against BitLocker, the Windows feature that today commands a $120 premium.

Firefox 3.5: The need for speed

This has been the big payoff week for Mozilla's developers, who worked overtime to squeeze out the last drop of performance from their new JavaScript engine.

'GeoHot' gets a shower, cleans up nice, reveals new iPhone 3G S jailbreak

Either puberty has been very kind to the author of the new 'Purple Ra1n' jailbreak tool, or George Hotz may also have some adequate Photoshop skills.

Symantec goes live with Norton 2010 betas

Norton Internet Security and Norton Antivirus 2010 are now available for testing.

IE8 WSUS update push to begin August 25

After months of availability to users willing to seek it out, Internet Explorer 8 will be rolled into Windows Server...

In New York, online booze loses a Circuit Court decision

Court worried about gangster influence if liquor purchased directly.

Geeks vs. journalists: A tale of two worldviews

Recovery with Angela Gunn Why geeks think most mainstream journalism is flaky, and why the mainstream thinks geeks are trying to kill them. (They're both right.)

Fire in downtown Seattle data center knocks out businesses, online services

Small fire has global impact with payment centers, city services down.

What's Next: Obama gives 'Einstein' the go-ahead, while China gives 'Green Dam' a thumbs-down

Plus: If you put up a Web site and name it after you and you're a federal judge, you might not want a bunch of weird nudity hanging around on it.

Hybrid satellite cell phones aren't far off

The first satellite in Terrestar's hybrid cellular/satellite phone network has been launched.

VirtualDub 1.9.3 Experimental

July 6 - 1:28 PM ET

CDBurnerXP Pro 4.2.4.1420

July 6 - 1:07 PM ET

AbiWord for Windows 2.7.6 Beta

July 6 - 12:46 PM ET

Notepad++ 5.4.4

July 6 - 12:25 PM ET

KeePass Password Safe (v2.x) 2.0.8

July 6 - 12:04 PM ET

ReactOS 0.3.10

July 6 - 11:43 AM ET

Tux Paint for Windows 0.9.21

July 6 - 11:22 AM ET