One of the strongest rumors before Apple’s media event on September 12 was that it would start selling videos at its iTunes Music Store. This is exactly what Apple has started doing and at the same time it took the opportunity to change name of the store to just iTunes Store, a simpler name than “iTunes Music and Video Store”. Apple has also launched iTunes 7 with integrated support for its video service and it is now possible to buy everything from music to TV shows and movies at iTunes Store. The image quality is suppose to be quite good with a resolution of 640×480 pixels (720x576px for DVD) but unfortunately there are som limitations with Apple’s movie service.
First of all, only people in North America can use the movie service at the moment and it only offers movies from Disney and its subsidiaries. Just as with the music from iTunes, Apple use FairPlay DRM technology to protect the material from being spread without authorization, which then of course means you have to use iTunes or an iPod to watch the movies, in other words the use of the videos is quite limited.
The prices are varying with $9.99 for most titles while the new costs $14.99. Preordered movies costs $12.99.
Apple has with this broadened its iTunes Store considerably and except from movies it has also started to sell iPod games online. What this expanded video assortment will mean to Apple’s Video iPod remains to be seen, but it now has a much stronger foundation to stand on.
