Andre Yoskowitz
9 Jul 2010 1:45
According to sources cited by NewTeeVee, Apple is looking to take the unpopular Apple TV set-top box to the next level, bringing TV episode rentals down to .99 cents, half the current pricing model on iTunes and elsewhere.
Apple is currently trying to get TV programmers to drop the price on rentals, with mostly everything else remaining the same. Once purchased, consumers have 30 days to watch the video with rentals then expiring 24 hours after you start.
What will be different, besides the pricing, will be that episodes will now be streamed, within the cloud, and not downloaded, following the broader industry trend led by Netflix and Hulu.
Although still unconfirmed, the upcoming Apple TV is said to use iOS 4, the operating system used on the iPhone. It will also use flash memory, moving away from the HDD seen in the original model.
Because the device will ship with (likely) under 128GB of flash memory, downloading makes little sense when streaming can be done efficiently.
Apple's iTunes platform remains the clear market leader for music and movie/TV downloads, so Apple should have significant clout with content producers whilst trying to get them to drop the price of rentals.