Anyone that knows me knows that I’m a huge fan of anything Apple. I own a MacBook Pro, an iPhone, and probably half a dozen iPods. I plan to buy a Time Capsule in the near future. I love the idea of being able to back up my MBP just by walking in the room. But, while I also love the idea of Apple TV, I haven’t come up with a good excuse to buy one.
I thought that I had finally found that excuse with the introduction of iTunes Movie Rentals. What an awesome idea! I can sit down, on a whim, and just start watching a movie (after a brief delay while I wait for the download.) Instant gratification! It’s the American way, baby!
Alas, I will likely never buy an Apple TV, because I will never use the rental feature.
The hell you say? You heard me right, sucka, I will never [again] use the iTunes Movie Rental feature…not in its current incarnation anyway. Why? Because I’m not in the habit of throwing my money away…much.
I have the same problem that a lot of folks are complaining about (see articles from Mark Bozsko, Glenn Fleishman, Rob Griffiths, David Pogue, Michael Rose). The movie industry is more interested in shooting itself in the foot than taking part in a true entertainment revolution.
Whatchu talkin’ ’bout? Well, I’m going to tell you! If you rent a movie from Apple, you have a very generous 30 day period in which to start watching that movie. Once you start, however, you only have 24 hours to complete it. Mark Bozsko has an almost workable technique for getting around this, but even it sits a little outside of real life.
So what’s the problem? Well, like those listed above, I lead a busy life that includes very little time for a couple of things: entertainment and sleeping. Sometimes my wife and I try to squeeze in a little entertainment time only to have sleep decide it is more important. So we’ll get about half way through the movie and one of us will say, “how about we stop here and finish this later?” This isn’t an occasional happenstance, this is the norm. This is my life. Welcome to it.
So what’s the big deal? Finish the movie the next night, but start watching it a little earlier. If only it were that simple. Ok, lets pretend we’re in the DVD world, using a little service called NetFlix. Tuesday night we manage to get the kids in bed, and get our real-life commitments taken care of, by 9:00 PM, and we sit down for a nice romantic evening of American Gangster, a movie that happens to be nearly 3 hours long. About an hour into the movie, my wife says, “I’m really enjoying the violence, but I’m pooped. Can we finish watching this tomorrow?”
So, along comes Wednesday, and we go through the same routine, and manage to sit down to finish the movie a little earlier, at 8:30 PM. We watch another hour or so and my wife cuddles up to me and says, “All of this violence, pervasive drug content and language, nudity and sexuality has got me randy baby, yeah!” So off goes the TV and sleep soon follows.
Thursday we finally manage to make it through the rest of the movie and shove the DVD in the mailbox Friday morning.
How does this jive with the iTunes 24 hour restriction? It dunt!
No doubt, though, that I can start and finish any movie within 72 hours. I’m good like that!
This isn’t an Apple problem, by the way. It’s the dumbass movie studios. Those robots are just incapable of thinking like real people, apparently.
I’ve got an idea. Go and grab a pen and paper, and I’m going to tell you how to be a billionaire. The first one to the finish line gets to loot. (Apple, I hope you’re paying attention, ’cause this will work, and I’m rooting for you! You already have most of these right, after all. I know you’re going to have to convince the studios of all of these items, but if anyone can do it, you can!)
How to hit a home run with on-demand movie rentals:
- Price at $2.99 to $3.99 for standard resolution movies, and $3.99 to $4.99 for HD. (With the occasional “special” of $0.99 or $1.99 to suck people in like the drug dealers you are.)
- Allow me to transfer movies to and from my computer, iPhone, iPod, and Apple TV. But also allow me to transfer a movie I rented in HD on my Apple TV to my iPhone to finish watching. How? Download both the HD and standard versions to my Apple TV, and transfer only the standard version. (Duh!)
- Allow me a 72 hour window to watch a movie from beginning to end. 72 is the magic number. I don’t want to have to pay extra for this, either. On this, there is no negotiation. And this is the tipping point. The company to implement this will win the on-demand rental wars. Of this there is no doubt.
- Allow me to transfer a movie while I’m off-line. Yes, there is some technical weirdness you’ll have to figure out, but when I’m on a 16 hour flight, and I’m watching a movie on my MBP but the battery is about dead, I should be able to finish watching it on my still-charged iPhone, and if I turn on my wireless, by golly I might just crash the plane.
I’m easy. If I get the 72 hour window, I will go out and buy an Apple TV and will be one step closer to being an Apple home. I’ll be happy, Apple will be happy, and even those crusty old movie studio types will crack a hint of a smile. You want on-demand movie rentals to take of? Put the consumer first. It’s amazing how effective that can be.
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