Apple has it wrong - iTunes Movie Rentals
Apple has had a pretty good track record of introducing innovative and well designed products at their annual MacWorld Expo over the past 4 to 5 years. However, this year's MacWorld keynote by Steve Jobs has gotten it all wrong. This is part three of a four part article detailing what I think went wrong.Part Three: iTunes Movie Rentals
During Steve Job's keynote speech, he mentioned that so far no company has been truly successful in converging the television with computers and the Internet. Apple's last attempt was the AppleTV and it failed. This year, they are having a second attempt with a revamped AppleTV and the new iTunes Movie Rentals service.
Here is my 8 ball prediction: Sorry Apple, it still won't work.
In this day and age of instant availability provided by Internet companies like YouTube, and DivX's Stage6, people want more than just movies. People also want television shows. In fact, I'll even assert that both television shows and movies will not be enough. The internet era television needs made for Internet programs that cater to mobile viewers who can watch any show any where and at any time. I have digressed quite a bit off from the original topic, which is Apple's second attempt at television convergence.
A simple movie rental service would not capture any significant market. Apple's iTunes Movie Rentals service however, is much worse than a movie rental service. It is anexorbitantly expensive premium (roughly S$4.50 per DVD movie) movie rental service that has the slowest release dates (new movies are only available 30 days after DVDs are available for sale) and has an incredibly short rental time (24 hours). Just check around. Even in Singapore, I can find a rental service that is cheaper, allows me to rent both movies as well as television shows, and allow me to watch the rented DVDs over any period of time I wish.
On the whole, iTunes Movie Rentals is simply not compelling enough.
Here is my 8 ball prediction: Sorry Apple, it still won't work.
In this day and age of instant availability provided by Internet companies like YouTube, and DivX's Stage6, people want more than just movies. People also want television shows. In fact, I'll even assert that both television shows and movies will not be enough. The internet era television needs made for Internet programs that cater to mobile viewers who can watch any show any where and at any time. I have digressed quite a bit off from the original topic, which is Apple's second attempt at television convergence.
A simple movie rental service would not capture any significant market. Apple's iTunes Movie Rentals service however, is much worse than a movie rental service. It is an
On the whole, iTunes Movie Rentals is simply not compelling enough.
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