DigitalSandbox

So Apple’s It’s Showtime event is over an in the books. Now it’s time to see how far off base I was on my predictions earlier. Let’s review:

• Movie Store
• Higher Definition
• DVD burning
• Movie Rental

Overall I would say I did pretty good. The Movie Store is now up and running. The videos are now at 640x480 resolution. And we even got a sneak-peek at the iBox iTV. Things I got wrong were DVD burning and rentals.

I really think that Apple is missing the boat on the rental thing. I would use the Movie store at least once a week if they offered rentals. As it stands I don’t see myself using more than once every couple of months. I don’t think I am alone on that one either. I just don’t collect movies the way I collect music. 95% of the time I am content to rent a movie and then be done with it. I just don’t see that habit changing.

Pricing of the download movies is both good and bad. I think that $9.99 for a movie isn’t bad, but I think that $14.99 for a new release is too much. The argument is likely that DVDs cost $20 so this is a savings, but who actually pays that. I can go and pick up a new release DVD from Walmart or Target for $15 (sometimes less). With that I get extras and an untethered copy I can watch wherever I want. If I was buying a DVD image that I could burn to a DVD complete with extras and everything you get from a retail disc I might be willing to pay $15. $9.99 is the right price for this I think. I would rather see everything at $9.99 than the $9.99 and $14.99.

I am so getting an iTV when those come out. I agree with Steve that this is the last piece of the puzzle. I don’t really want to watch everything on my computer and I don’t want to hook my computer up to my TV. I do wish that they had made it a storage box as well. I would love to have an iTV with a hard drive to store all the media I buy and store on there and then share that with my computers. But I’ll take it this way too.

I am loving so me of the features of iTunes 7. This is really the first revision to the interface in a long time and it looks good. The integration of Cover Flow ? I wonder if they bought that software or hired the developer or just recreated it. UPDATE: they did.? is great. I am so excited about being able to downloaad cover art that I can’t even tell you. That will be awesome. I am also glad that the movies, TV shows, Music, etc. now have their own libraries to sort things more clearly. I can’t wait to play with this one.

New iPods are nice and everything, but nothing there that really knocks my socks off. basically smaller cases, more storage, longer battery. They look good and I would love to get one, but nothing really earth-shattering there.