The iTunes Store as the new cineplex? It’s not quite as crazy as it sounds, as the second prominent filmmaker in as many months today announced he would premiere a film exclusively through Apple’s iTunes. Edward Burns, director of “The Brothers McMullen” and “She’s the One,” announced in the New York Times that he would follow in the footsteps of Wes Anderson by releasing his movie “Purple Violets” exclusively through iTunes on Nov. 20.

“I don’t know that this is the model for the indie filmmaker who makes a movie with a cast of unknowns,” said Mr. Burns, who stars in his film with Debra Messing, Selma Blair and Patrick Wilson. “But there are plenty of people with nicer screening rooms in their basements now than at some of those art-house theaters. And I felt there’s got to be a better way to get these films to people who want to see them at their moment of highest awareness.”

Pundits are naturally taking this as a sign that Apple is finally trying to get serious about movies on iTunes. Though the company has succeeded wildly in selling music and TV shows through the service, few film studios have signed up thus far. This is Apple’s first-ever exclusive feature film deal. What do you think? Brilliant ploy or rip-off of Radiohead’s business model?

Apple has hit so many home runs in the iPod/iPhone/iTunes universe, that it can be easy to fall under the impression that all its ventures there are destined to succeed. This week brought a wake-up call in that regard, as Amazon launched its totally DRM-free MP3 Store, and the various TV networks made stronger moves into non-iTunes distribution channels. And NBC told Apple to go to hell as many ways as it knew how (though Chuck and Journeyman, produced by Warner and aired on NBC, do appear on the iTunes Store regardless of the current enmity) And, of course, movie studios are still largely avoiding iTunes like the plague.

Wired has a great run-down of what’s been happening with the TV companies lately as they try to figure out the whole digital distribution thing. Largely, they speak to a world without Apple. Which is interesting, if only because it’s pretty clear that video on an iPod or even an iPod is not as compelling as video on your TV or even your laptop. That means the content is much more platform-agnostic, and the iPod installed base is way less relevant. Hugh Hart has the story:

CBS execs nicknamed their team-and-stream syndication model Swing Town. Multiple partners? Absolutely. Downplaying the brand-centric hub site approach, CBS has partnered with sites including AOL, Joost, Sling Media, YouTube, MSNBC and Bebo. Viewership for CBS material subsequently skyrocketed from 24 million in May to 134 million in July, according to Multichannel News.

Patrick Keane, a vice president with CBS Interactive, says, “We syndicate our content to these sites because users are telling us that is where they’re going. We want our content in front of people wherever they are, whether that means Yahoo or AOL or YouTube or Bebo.”

It’s a fascinating landscape out there for InternetTV. Apple doesn’t have this thing nailed down just yet. The next few years are going to be wild.

As has been reported widely, Apple’s iPhone Update 1.1.1 makes it again impossible to use an iPhone on any network other than AT&T and eliminates third-party applications installed through the so-called Jailbreak hack. The update, which introduces the WiFi iTunes Store to the iPhone, enables TV-out and some basic usability features, like double-tapping the home button to get to phone-call favorites.

On one level, I’m not that bugged by this behavior. After all, Apple issued a huge warning that installing the update could render unlocked phones inoperable and “might” stop third-party applications from functioning. I’m sure AT&T has been screaming at Apple to close down the unlock loophole since it hit a month ago, and Apple earns part of the revenue from iPhone service plans.

On the other hand, this is incredibly anti-consumer behavior. Most formerly unlocked iPhones now won’t even work on AT&T. They’re useless bricks (only unlocks from iPhoneSimFree can work again with AT&T). Why shouldn’t an iPhone be able to operate like an iPod Touch if, for some reason, the SIM card isn’t functioning? Why should it be a brick. People have paid good money for it. This is Apple bending over backward to please a partner notorious for ignoring consumer interests.

Worse still is the removal (they were scrubbed off of phones) of all third-party software. What possible reason does Apple have for this other than an insistence on total control? That’s as bad or worse than the mobile service carriers themselves.

Obviously, wait to upgrade if you’re unlocked to see if the hackers can stay ahead of Apple in the “cat and mouse” game that Steve Jobs described the other week. Does this bug everyone else as much as me?

Via Compiler 

NBC has struck the most recent blow in the on-going, extremely catty break-up between the media giant and Apple, announcing it in November it would enable consumers to download “many of its most popular programs” for free. Provided they watch embedded ads that can’t be removed. On their computers. Within seven days of the air-date. When they self-destruct. No, I’m not kidding. As BuzzSugar puts it:

• The video will only work for a week after the episodes are broadcast.
• Only a limited number of shows will be available at the start, but at least they’re generally good ones: “Heroes,” “The Office,” “Life,” “Bionic Woman,” “30 Rock,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
• The content won’t be available to Mac users (um, take that, Apple?)

Now that’s got to have Apple quaking in its boots — the return of the original DiVX technology plan! Best of all, it’s Windows-only! So great! NBC does claim that its downloads will soon be compatible with iPods and Macs, and that it will eventually offer ad-free downloads that will be transferrable to other devices, but not until mid-2008.

Still, this is a fascinating twist. I can’t wait to see what comes next. The video download market is nowhere near as locked up as music is.

(Thanks, Kimra and Andrew!)

Boffo scuttlebutt out of Lalaland: Fruit-tech tells the Nets to chop epi-bucks in half! Socko! Peacock.

(Non-Variety translation: Rumor has it that Apple wants to change the price of iTunes TV downloads to 99 cents.)

I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about why Apple would want to force the networks to make less money per download on TV shows, and the best answer I’ve heard comes from my fiancee: Apple believes cheaper downloads will lead to more sampling, and therefore greater popularity for newer shows.

Think about it. You’ve heard great things about “How I Met Your Mother,” but you don’t want to spend the time or money to get the first DVD on NetFlix. The whole series isn’t available through On-Demand cable, and you’re definitely not sold enough to buy the box. With a full iTunes archive, you could try out the pilot for a buck. At $2, it feels too much like you’re over-paying for a set you might want later, as sets average out to about $2 per episode. At a dollar, it’s a product sample. For $2, you’ve already invested.

The real competition for iTunes downloads isn’t DVD box sets — it’s cable On Demand service. That’s what hasn’t clicked until now. The TV networks, because many of them also own record companies, can only view their product compared to song prices. But it’s an artificial comparison. Which will you play more times: A hot song you love or an hour-long episode of Heroes? If anything, songs should cost more than TV shows.

For myself, I would buy a lot more shows on iTunes if the price goes down — especially for series I don’t watch or from channels I don’t subscribe to. The more I think about it, the more I like it. It’s incredibly consumer-focused, but also focused on growing the audiences of series with niche followings. It means more revenue than On-Demand for the networks, as well as possible boosts for DVD season box sets.

What do you think, how would your iTunes habits change if the TV prices drop?

Via Buzzsugar.

Nothing Steve Jobs announced this morning was as surprising as the $200 price cut to the 8 GB iPhone and the discontinuation of the 4 gig model (currently blowing out at $299 while supplies last — deal of the century). Less than three months on the market, Apple chopped the price by more than a third.

Readers of the blog (and lots of other sites) are screaming bloody murder, throwing about accusations that defenders of the price cut are Apple employees, demanding refunds and more. I would love to join in on the outrage, but this is entirely typical of the way Apple handles truly new technologies.

The very first Mac debuted in February 1984 for $2,499 with 128k. Just eight months later, the company rolled out the Mac 512k for $3300 in September. That would have been fine, but the Macintosh Plus, with 1 meg of RAM, came out in January 1985 for just $2,600. Anyone who bought a Mac 512k got hosed even worse than the earliest adopters.

When the first iMac came out, it shipped in August with a 233Mhz processor and a stunningly under-powered graphics chip for $1,299. Two months later, a revision tripling the video ram came out for the same price. It was the difference between playing Myth at all and not, on a non-upgradable machine.

The multicolor edition shipped in January for the same price, a 266Mhz chip and a significant better graphics chip. By may, 333Mhz chips rolled for the machines. And then it all got replaced by the iMac DV, which included FireWire, completely obsoleting the previous line.

Perhaps the most egregious recent Apple screwing consumers moment came with the iMac line in 2005 and 2006. The iMac G5 with ambient light sensor shipped in May 2005. Then it was replaced by the iMac G5 with a built-in iSight in October, just three months before the transition to Intel chips, when an identical but much-faster machine came out for the same price.

And, of course, the AppleTV was on the market for just two months before Apple brought out the 160-gig model, with four times the storage of the non-upgradable original.

I’m still paying the price for getting a first-gen Powerbook G4 12″. I got no SuperDrive, no DVI port and no USB 2.0, even though I bought just two months before the upgrade.

At this point, if you buy a first-generation Apple product, you’ll probably see either a huge price drop or feature boost within a couple months of your purchase. It’s nasty, it’s mean and it’s capricious, but it’s the way Apple works. If you want to get the most from Apple, wait for their products to mature and drop in price.

It’s entirely likely that a 3G iPhone with a 16gig drive will be announced in Europe in September. That’s just the way Apple operates. I think the reason it’s so upsetting in this case is that the company always introduces its products with flair and says to the world, “This is the one! This is how it should be done!” And we believe it, we overpay, and watch in dismay as Apple introduces One More Thing after One More Thing…

Apple just slapped NBC down hard. Responding to reports NBC was pulling out of the iTunes Store, Apple announced that it was prematurely canceling their partnership — Because NBC wanted $5 per episode of its shows!

Apple® today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com). The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

Incredible. NBC has benefited from iTunes more than anyone else, and they’re throwing out crazy price increases. I mean, that would have made Friday Night Lights Season 1 cost $110! NBC is selling the DVD for less than $20 brand-new with more special features! If this is any indication of Hulu’s pricing scheme, it’s screwed out of the gate.

Via Daring Fireball.

Rick James pic from CBC.

Pic by Leander Kahney: Apple’s San Francisco store on iPhone opening night.

Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey thinks Apple sold 700,000 iPhones on its opening weekend, more than half again than the 500,000 estimated by his esteemed colleague Gene Munster.

Bloomberg reports that Bailey initially pegged 350,000 iPhone sales, and Munster estimated 200,000.

Said Munster: “In 2009, we estimate a third of Apple’s sales will be from iPhone. This is a huge product.”

Each Apple Store is intimate, friendly, educational and filled with new technologies to discover. They’re warm places, filled with helpful “geniuses,” great gift ideas and room to learn, fail and succeed. Each interaction is an opportunity for Apple to directly connect in an emotional way with its customers — a pure brand expression.
But as Apple’s influence and power as a company has grown, another electronics powerhouse, Sony, has headed straight downhill, with a mediocre retail presence reflecting its overall woes. The NY Times’s Randall Stross does an excellent job of chronicling the features that make Apple stand out and the symptoms of Sony’s disease in this feature from the Sunday Times. He does not, however, truly diagnose the patient or recommend a cure that people can actually use.
I’ll take that chance. Click through to hear what Apple is doing right, and why Sony Style stores feel so cold.

Technorati Tags: apple, retail, sony

Sometimes, the alternate-universe humor mocking Apple is only 3 percent more insane than actual Apple news. The hilarious Crazy Apple Rumors Site just announced the launch of Mac OS 9.3:

According to sources at Apple, the company is entirely at a loss to explain where this seed came from.

“I didn’t do it,” said senior vice president of software engineering Bertrand Serlet. “I can’t even get Leopard done in time. I’m swamped. Stupid iPhone and Apple TV. Nobody asked me whether or not we should make those. I mean, I haven’t gone to the bathroom in three weeks. OS 9? Je pense que non.”

Sign me up!
Image via Answers.com
Via Digg.
Crazy Apple Rumors Site » Blog Archive » Apple Seeds OS 9.3

Technorati Tags: mac, OS 9