macnn/electronista
09/08/2007, 3:30pm, EDT
Saturday, September 8thMovie rentals coming (soon) to iTunes?
Apple may be planning on bringing on movie rentals very soon, according new information found by a user when trying to report a problem about iTunes. In a screenshot taken by David Watanabe, the iTunes feedback/refund reporting system has severals options to report issues related to Movie Rentals -- specifically if you did not receive the movie, accidental purchase, content quality, duplicate purchase, wrong version, bad metadata, and other options were provided in the refund request menu. "I was trying to report a problem via iTunes, and this pop-up for selecting a reason contains some interesting/revealing strings," Watanbe wrote. "Looks like 'RentalMovies' will be coming to the iTunes store." Several users confirmed the presence of the options on iTunes, but the system appears to be down as of Saturday afternoon (PST).
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And if you notice, all the 'problems' are not written correctly (except the first three). These seem more like they're coming more from the underlying software then the actual reasonings. And programmers are known for just throwing in options for every possible thing coming down the pike, so they don't have to keep adding them in when some feature becomes available (like the guys who run the support web site know before anyone else that rentals are coming 'real soon').
As a reminder, I recall when some people starting cruising through a version of OS X and finding 'proof' that the PowerBook G5 was just around the corner.
I guess they didn't know what corner, but it was just around the corner!
But look at how long it took ringtones to make it live. That was discovered in a very similar manner, and it was months before that feature (?) made it into iTunes.
http://requestresponse.blogspot.com/2007/09/music-vs-motion-rent-vs-own.html
So this is either a master plan of Jobs or more likely just a strong possibility at any time. Sept 5 didn't touch video or the Apple TV at all as a subject so I think this could be announced anywhere from this week to February. I hope it happens.
I have no desire to own a TV series, but would love to watch whenever I want. I use a DVR to achieve this, but would gladly pay a monthly fee to watch the shows I'm interested in.
Maybe $5/month/show or something like that. Especially if I can get them HD. Since I would be "renting" these shows, the AppleTV could just download at night and get rid of old ones.