According to the Financial Times, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Warner Bros, who are all reported to be in talks with Apple to bring their movie collections to the iTunes store, are pressuring Apple to reduce the number of devices movie content from iTunes would be able to play on (namely, iPods).
The studios want to avoid the experience of the music industry, which has yet to recover from years of illegal digital piracy. Apple must introduce a new model for feature film content delivery, said one studio executive involved in the talks. With the average cost of a blockbuster film approaching $100m, movie studios had more to lose than music companies, he added. Were very willing to do a deal but were keen to get some concessions from Apple that will account for the differences between the value of music and television content and feature film content.
Currently, Apple's usage rights allow downloadable content to be played on an unlimited number of iPods as well as up to 5 computers, although DVD burning is limited to archiving purposes only (DVD-Video burning is not supported).
Disney sold 125,000 movies in its first week of operation on the iTunes store. While still small in comparison to DVD sales, Disney expects digital sales to add $50 million in revenue to its bottom line in the first year on the iTunes Store. The continued success of movie sales may make arguments for restricted usage rights fall on deaf ears to Apple executives, who would view such arguments as nit-picking a successful program.
Sunday January 23, 2022 10:32 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple is working on a number of new products that are set to launch this fall, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that it will be "the widest array" of new devices that Apple has introduced in its history.
In his latest "Power On" newsletter, Gurman explains that Apple is working on four new flagship iPhones (iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Max, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max), an updated low-end Ma...
Sunday January 23, 2022 2:59 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple has always emphasized the depth of thought that goes into the design of its products. In the foreword to Designed by Apple in California, a photo book released by the company in 2016, Jony Ive explains how Apple strives "to define objects that appear effortless" and "so simple, coherent and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative."
But every once in a while even Apple...
Three months after their launch, the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros continue to experience high demand and seemingly short supply, with shipping dates for both models stretching into multiple weeks in several of Apple's key markets.
In the United States, the baseline 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro chip is estimated to ship in three to four weeks, promising an arrival by at least...
Monday January 24, 2022 9:20 am PST by Juli Clover
AT&T today announced the launch of upgraded AT&T Fiber plans, which support speeds of up to 5 Gigabits for some customers. There are two separate plans, one "2 GIG" plan and one "5 GIG" plan, available to new and existing AT&T Fiber subscribers.
According to AT&T, the new plans are available to nearly 5.2 million customers across 70 metro areas including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, San...
Apple's AirPods have been credited with saving a woman's life after a potentially fatal fall, People reports.
When a 60-year-old florist in New Jersey tripped and hit her head in her studio, she lost consciousness and awoke heavily bleeding. With nobody around to call for help, she realized she had her AirPods in, and used a "Hey Siri" command to call 911. An operator was able to stay on the ...
Apple's second-generation AirPods Pro could deliver higher fidelity audio than the AirPods Max over-ear headphones, despite being comparatively small in-ear buds, recent reports have suggested.
In a recent note to investors, seen by MacRumors, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that the second-generation AirPods Pro will offer improved audio quality thanks to support...
Monday January 24, 2022 10:15 am PST by Juli Clover
A number of developers are upset with an increasingly problematic iCloud server issue that is causing some apps that have implemented iCloud support to fail to sync properly.
As outlined on the Developer Forums and on Twitter, there are CloudKit connectivity issues that have been occurring since November. Some users of apps that have iCloud support built in are seeing the following message:...
As we roll into the latter half of January, we're starting to hear more about a potential spring Apple event, which is likely to take place in March or April. There are a number of potential announcements on deck, so an event would be a good opportunity for Apple to get them all out there.
We've also been going back and forth on some iPhone 14 rumors, and we've taken a look at a number of...
