Apple on Tuesday updated its iTunes Store with new discounts on movies and other content. Among the deals are Americana films like The Patriot and Field of Dreams for under $10, a ton of new $5 features, and limited-time bundle prices like the American Pie collection for just $20. Check out our full roundup below.
Apple on Tuesday updated its iTunes Store with new discounts on movies and other media. Among the deals are Spider-Man movies under $10, George Clooney movies under $8, and a plethora of films under $5. Check out our full roundup below.
An unexpected news came Sunday from Samsung Electronics ahead of CES 2019 as the South Korean conglomerate announced that its Smart TV sets will soon pick up support for Apple's AirPlay 2 media streaming technology, as well as a new iTunes Movies and TV Shows app.
Apple today noted in an updated support document that the viewing window for iTunes movie rentals in the United States has expanded from 24 hours to 48 hours.
You can rent or purchase movies in 4K from iTunes, but you cannot download them locally to your devices like with 1080p (HD) and standard definition (SD) content offered on the store.
Learn how you can enjoy high-quality HDR (High Dynamic Range) movies and TV shows in the Apple TV app on your iPhone or iPad. A quick heads up: it's a lot easier than you think!
As Apple and Comcast continue to debate offering home rentals of the latest flicks just weeks after their release, Bloomberg today cited 20th Century Fox studios chief Stacey Snider as claiming that this will become a reality within 6-12 months.
Hollywood is reportedly discussing ways to make the latest digital flicks from major studios available for purchase or renting as soon as two weeks following their theatrical debuts in order to make up for declining sales of DVDs in the age of Netflix.
Apple may be readying 4K resolution video content on iTunes with high dynamic range (HDR) color support ahead of a possible 4K-capable Apple TV introduction this fall.
Strong competition from the likes of Amazon and Comcast has halved Apple's market share when it comes to movie sales and rentals, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
The numbers should be taken with a grain of salt because, as the article states, no third parties track market share in the digital-movie business. While that makes exact figures impossible to obtain, Hollywood majors do different amounts of business with Apple and several of them have confirmed “a marked decline in iTunes’ leadership position.”
Sources said iTunes' market share for renting and selling movies has been falling for years, tumbling to between 20 percent and 35 percent from well over 50 percent as recently as 2012.
By comparison, Amazon's market share in that business has recently climbed to around 20 percent, studio executives said. As for Comcast, it now claims about 15 percent of the combined market for movie sales and purchases in the US.
Bernstein Research estimates that iTunes video, music, book and magazine sales in 2016 accounted for an estimated $4.1 billion in revenue, making it the second-largest services business behind App Store sales.
Apple says it's focused on providing users with premium entertainment via video apps on App Store. The company takes a fifteen percent cut on subscriptions sold via App Store.
An excerpt from the article:
An Apple spokeswoman, who didn’t dispute the market-share estimates, said Apple is focused on providing customers with video content across subscription services such as Netflix and HBO, as well as iTunes, where she said movie purchases and rentals have increased over the past year and hit their highest level in more than a decade.
It is no secret that video-subscription services are growing in popularity at the expense of on-demand rentals and movie purchases. Why pay five bucks or more to stream a single movie via iTunes in high definition if you can get a full Netflix or HBO NOW subscription for the price of a single movie download (new movie downloads are priced at $19.99 on iTunes)?
Movies, like music, are meant to be streamed no matter what Apple says about it.
Just like iTunes' market share for digital music purchases has been decreasing as part of the overall industry decline due to the rise of streaming services like Spotify, the same thing is now happening in the digital movie industry.
Apple has offered movies and TV shows on iTunes since 2003.
Apple has been trying for years to persuade Hollywood studios to let it build a so-called skinny bundle of the best channels from the likes of Disney, ESPN and others, to no avail.
Last year, total digital-movie sales and rentals rose a combined twelve percent to $5.3 billion in the US, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is in discussions with Hollywood studios about eventually offering home rentals for new movies two weeks after they've hit the silver screen, but at a price.
New flicks are usually available for purchase on the iTunes Store 90 days after theatrical releases, followed by rentals two to four weeks later.
Movie studios are now said to be discussing rentals two weeks after they open in theaters though encryption is among the concerns in these talks, the article notes.
Ten years ago this month, digital movies launched on iTunes with just 75 titles, all from studios owned by Disney in which Steve Jobs was the largest individual shareholder. Today, iTunes offers more than 85,000 feature-length movies for purchase or rental. To celebrate ten years of iTunes Movies, Apple is offering six ten-movie bundles, priced at just $9.99.
For today only, customers in the United States can buy these bundles packed with releases from Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount, Lionsgate and Sony Pictures that cover a wide range of genres.