Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Apple hits another home run?
Have you heard about the Expo? Movie rentals with Apple TV take 2! No need to sync back with the computer! Download in HD or regular DVD quality! (Although to be fair we don't know what resolution Jobs is calling "HD"). Almost all major movie studios on board. Gentlemen, is this internet movie rentals done right?
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3 comments:
This sure is a step in the right direction but I don't think Apple followed through. The $299 price is still too high. $149 would make them fly off the shelves. Hey it only has a 40GB hard drive. Apple is still thinking like a hardware company. The movie rental revenue would dwarf the hardware costs. They could even do a year type contract like cell phones where you get the box for only $50 if you subscribe to the movie download service for $19.95 / month for 8 movies. I don't think Apple should drag their feet on this one. They need to get the AppleTV box in every living room of America, before someone else trumps them, like Palm did to the Newton. Then the revenue will come pouring in.
The price of the rentals is still at a premium. $2.99 for library, $3.99 for new releases. I have NetFlix and for $20/month get up to 3 rentals at a time. With turnaround time we can rent about 8-12 movies a month. That's between $1.70-$2.50 per movie. With no premium for new releases. Granted the instant nature of AppleTV deserves a premium price. The prices are comparable to Pay per view prices on Dish Network, which is $3.99.
I like that Apple is the innovator in this field, but I also worry that Apple needs competition to keep prices competitive.
Excellent points, Stitch. On the other hand, we all know the blood that has been spilled at the negotiating table with the misc labels and pricing. Is it possible that the movie studios are the ones primarily dictating the rental rates?
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