Will iTunes Movie Rentals Change The Way We Watch Movies?

I was exchanging emails with my cousin. We were talking about the MacBook Air and he expressed his feelings towards it. At the end of the email he mentioned iTunes Movie Rentals and he said, “who needs hd-dvd/blu-ray when you can download HD content.”

This got me thinking, will iTunes Movie Rentals finally change the way we watch movies? I know there’s Netflix and other rental services out there but none of them have the same popularity as the iTunes Store. iTunes is the leader thus far in digital media downloads. Serving up more than 4 billion songs. Will they be able to replicate this success when it comes to movies?

Steve Jobs admitted that they didn’t get it right the first time. Movie and TV Show sales from iTunes didn’t do as much as they expected it to. Apple was initially opposed to rentals and variably pricing but now they’re rethinking their strategy.

Music and movies or videos are really different animals altogether. You listen to music over and over again, well not unless it sucks and then you just listen to it once and throw it to the garbage bin. But for the most part, if you have a favorite song you’d probably listen to it a couple of hundred times. You watch your favorite movie about a dozen times at most. For most movies you’d only watch it once. Thus rental makes a lot of sense.

Rentals isn’t a new concept but Apple has a way of making things so simple. With the simplicity of the iTunes Store, Apple is poised to revolutionize how we watch movies. I don’t even live in the states and yet I’m eager to give the movie rentals a go. Too bad I have about 2 cents worth of credit in my iTunes account.

Together with the new Apple TV, rentals are going to be much more easy to do. Think about it, you’re sitting in your living room and you suddenly felt the urge to watch a movie. You press a few buttons on your Apple remote and the movie you want to see is downloading already. Moments later you’re watching it on your LCD. How’s that for convenience. That’s the advantage of Apple from NetFlix, Apple makes end to end solutions. From the store all the way to the device. It has control on how it wants you to experience things. Nowadays user experience is a big thing. It’s not enough we’re able to do things, we should be able to do things as easy as possible and that’s where Apple shines.

So in the coming months, we’ll see if iTunes Movie Rentals will change the way we watch movies.