Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"While perhaps not the truest representation of the movie industry, the Sundance Film Festival nevertheless occupies a prominent place in viewers' minds as the festival for seeing and hearing about independent pictures. Now, Sundance is pairing up with YouTube to show some of this year's award-winning films to the public."

Initially only for those in the U.S., and only for a short time as it starts today and ends next Friday, January 31st. The movies will be priced at $4.00 USD for a 48-hour viewing period, and will be five movies from the 2009 and 2010 festivals. Which ones? Glad you asked! They are The Cove, One Too Many Mornings, Homewrecker, Children of Invention and Bass Ackwards. It will be interesting to see how well this works, what are your thoughts?

"Blockbuster today announced the availability of its Blockbuster app on the App Store. The free app was created in response to customer requests for easy access to Blockbuster services on their iPhone and iPod touch."

You cannot reserve movies at this time, although that is one of the items they are planning to add, but you can browse their catalog, check store inventory, manage your online rental que and locate the nearest store. This is a free app available now in iTunes.

"In the latest move to rejuvenate its weathered brand, Blockbuster plans to make its premium digital movie catalog available to TiVo subscribers before ultimately extending the service to devices made by Apple and other hardware vendors."

I wonder if Apple will even let Blockbuster on their devices (the un-hacked ones that is) since this would be direct competition to iTunes. I suppose if they had a different catalog in which to draw from, that might make sense for Apple to allow it, and take a cut of the profits. I'm not sure if Blockbuster has access to movies that iTunes doesn't, and I suppose the same can be said about Netflix, so who knows if this is just posturing or part of their overall plan. I guess all we can do at this point is hurry up and wait.

"It's time to drop the hobby talk. First-quarter unit sales of Apple TV tripled from a year earlier, in part due to a software update introduced a year ago that lets users rent movies, including some in the ultra-crisp high-definition format. Version 1.0 of Apple TV let users watch programming purchased from iTunes or downloaded off Google's (GOOG) YouTube."

That is quite a jump in sales, and if that doesn't get Apple's attention I'm not sure what will. I love my Apple TV, even with all it's limitations (no Netflix interface for one) and I keep hoping for that news item that tells me something big is going to happen with it. Granted, since it's original inception when it was deemed a failure due to lack of options, it has gotten some upgrades (YouTube, rentals and HD to name a few). I just wish they would take it more serious and really hit a home run with it, is that too much to ask?