News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
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Apple very quietly added TV shows to the content of Australia's iTunes Store yesterday, not even issuing a press release about it until early this morning (and that with no subject line). The shows, from three American producers and two Australian ones, cost $2.99 each and finally provide a fully legal way to populate an Apple TV, iPod touch or — in a few weeks — iPhone with compelling content. Up until now the only video content available from the iTunes Store has been Pixar short films, music videos and movie trailers.
The selection at this stage remains fairly limited. 21 shows in all are available from five producers, including both the American ABC network and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Our ABC has, of course, been distributing its own video content via its web site for some time now for free, and much of the content now selling on iTunes is available that way. The other Australian content comes from the Nine Network — Sea Patrol, Canal Road, Urban Magic and McLeod's Daughters. Intriguingly, the press release says that programming from the Seven Network is available, though as this went online nothing from Seven was available from iTunes (unless you count American shows that happen to be shown on the Seven network here — but Apple wouldn't be that sneaky, would it?).
(At this stage Apple appears to have employed some kind of scientific/voodoo technique to ensure that not one of the shows on offer is one that I actually watch, so it's difficult for me to gauge how compelling others will find the content. $2.99 worth? You tell me.)
When Apple launched the video content on the iTunes Store in the USA, it only had the American ABC network on board, and this has subsequently grown to include almost every major supplier of video content in the US (though not the NBC network, following a falling-out over pricing). Chances seem good that the range of choice available on the Australian store will broaden as well in time.
In February this year Apple hired Kevin Swint, formerly of US retail giant Wal-Mart, to spearhead its efforts to distribute TV and movie content via iTunes internationally. This would appear to be the first fruit of that labour, and hopefully will lead to considerably more content in the near future. Eddy Cue, Apple's Vice-President of iTunes, described this release as "a great start" in Apple's statement, so indications are there. More TV shows, more short films and — dare to dream — movies may well follow.
Apple added video content to the UK iTunes Store in August last year, then in December to Canada. The international rollout continuied into this year with Germany getting TV shows in April, and Canada and the UK getting movie downloads just a few weeks ago.
The next quetion is, will this put pressure on Apple Australia to start pricing the AppleTV affordably? iPods and iPhones are only one way to view the content you purchase from iTunes, the piece de resistance is the ability to watch it on your TV set in the lounge room, and for that Apple TV is the way to go. Unfortunately, Apple TV is currently priced at $449 for the 40GB version and $579 for the 160GB — as opposed to $US229 and $US329 for the same products in their home country. While we can't expect parity pricing from Apple, 50 and 60 percent premiums (even accounting for GST) seem unreasonable. When the price of Apple TV was lowered in the US in January, the Australian price was unchanged.
One can easily imagine that the reason for this was that, with no movies or TV shows available on the iTunes Store no-one had a reason to buy an Apple TV, so who woulod notice that the price didn't move? Now that the type of content people would be willing to buy might start becoming available through the Store, it might be time for Apple to rethink that strategy.
wrote on June 25, 2008 2:26 PM
wrote on June 25, 2008 2:27 PM
Um why would I wan to pay 63+ for the season 6 of scrubs on Itunes when I can get the hard copy for 29-39??. Don't see the benefit here
wrote on June 28, 2008 11:48 PM
"Pods and iPhones are only one way to view the content you purchase from iTunes" No, you can also watch iTunes video content on your computer using Quicktime. In fact that's the only way I can watch it, having neither a video iPod or iPhone. "the piece de resistance is the ability to watch it on your TV set in the lounge room, and for that Apple TV is the way to go." Yes, it is better to watch such content on a "proper" TV. But there are lots of ways out there on the net to transcode DRM protected content for other platforms, without using Apple TV. The fundamental flaw in any copy-protection scheme is that if there is a method for this content to be ultimately perceived by humans through conventional sensory stimulation, then there will also be a way to copy it.
"Don't forget to get there very, very early", was the advice given to me by practically everyone prior to this morning's Macworld Conference Keynote. "Things get pretty hairy", they claimed -- and they weren't referencing Australian Macworld's fine editor. So at 5am, having been woken by the loud gentleman speaking German VERY LOUDLY, I prepared towander down the chilly streets of San Francisco and wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. Annoyance doesn't quite cover my mood when another Australian journalist makes an appearance two hours later, right behind me.
Alex Kidman | Jan 17, 2008
Well, that kind of came out of nowhere, didn't it? With little fanfare and even less fuss, Apple Australia flicked the switch on its iPhoto printing service this morning, meaning that for the first time ever Australian customers have the full feature set for our digital shoeboxes. And not a moment too soon -- we've been paying full price all these years too. It appears that the books at least are beeing printed overseas, so it's not a matter of Apple Australia having done a local deal in that regard -- just that Apple US has discovered international shipping. It's a little less clear with the prints, as the ordering process doesn't indicate they're shipping "from abroad" as the books do, plus a little "Print @ Fujicolor" logo appears on the print ordering page, indicating that Apple might be subcontracting that work out to www.fujicolor.com.au — which offers the same range of print sizes at comparable prices. This should mean that the prints are delivered fairly quickly. I'll be ordering a bunch, and I'll let you know when they arrive. The next question is of course printing from Aperture, Apple's somewhat higher-end application that does much the same as iPhoto but for professional photographers. In the US, Aperture users have the same range of services available as iPhoto users. In Australia, not yet. For all we know, that's this afternoon's news.
Matthew JC. Powell | Feb 6, 2008
Now that the Blu-ray Disc versus HD-DVD stoush has been declared a non-starter (without the market ever really having much of a say in it) does that mean that the future of content delivery has been decided? Hardly. Battles are still raging on a number of fronts and few surrenders are to be found. Concessions, however, are many. For example, 20th Century Fox has released a number of DVDs in the USA which include "digital copies" of the main content. This may seem an odd sort of terminology since the DVD itself is a digital copy. But the emphasis in that terminology should be not on the word "digital" but on the word "copy". The "digital copy" is a version of the film optimised for use on devices like Apple TV and iPod touch. I specify those devices because, in the case of Fox at least, the copy is still protected by Apple's FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) technology, just as if it had been downloaded from the iTunes Store. Which means it won't play on any non-Apple devices.
Matthew JC. Powell | Feb 22, 2008
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, speaking in Sydney this morning, said the MacBook Air won’t be a hit (even though he likes it), AppleTV shows the future for digital entertainment (but really frustrates him anyway), and the 2G iPhone was a disappointment to him because of its sluggish internet speed.
Dan Warne | Mar 3, 2008
