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Well heres something I wasn’t expecting, iTunes NZ & Australia have announced and launched Movie purchases and rentals.
I suppose it was inevitable but there hadn’t been an rumours at all. This is great news, not only does it make an AppleTV appealing but actually usable.

iTunes Movies

Prices seem ok, not fantastic. But low enough to warrant even a test rental/purchase for even the most timid user. Apparently theres HD copies of some movies which cost $1 more, I can’t find one yet. File sizes range from 0.8-1.2gb in the movies I looked at.

700 movies, Studios included off the bat

  • 20th Century Fox
  • The Walt Disney Studios
  • Paramount Pictures
  • Warner Bros
  • Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM)
  • Sony Pictures Television International
  • Lionsgate

So pricing is as follows –
Rentals (30day rental, 48hrs to Watch once you press play, play across all )

  • New Release – $6.99
  • Older Titles – $4.99

Purchases

  • New Releases – $24.99
  • Older Titles – $9.99 – $17.99

You’re looking for a test buy, Inconvenient Truth, the cheapest movie I can find right now for $12.99.

The usual peev’s –
No TV yet, which is sad but understandable. I hope this means that theres at least an infastructure for real video delivery and hopefully mean that TVNZ, TV3 etc.. can start deals with Apple.
Listings No way of finding movies by price or quality.
Bandwidth – So I pay $7 for a movie, and then need to pay for the gb of data also adding, say, $1 more to the price. More than a DVD.
DRM – Everyone’s favourite. Apple only – no Zune users…….

All in all though this is a really big day for NZ media distribution, as big as iTunes originally launching music sales in NZ. You can finally sit on your couch, click through a big list of Movies and click a button and be watching a rented/purchased movie in seconds (or minutes knowing NZ broadband). You can have the iphone to play it on finally, and make use of the gimmick of an ipod with video – just like most of the developed world. Exciting stuff – if only I had money on my credit card……. 🙂

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This article on Counter Notions is a fascinating read on why Apple doesn’t do concept products and just makes, um, real ones.

Why show off products that you can’t/won’t make other than to try and make you competitors think you’ve got the next big thing, right round the corner. Of course the corner never comes. It’s just the same thing as last year, with a slightly better camera on it, or slightly faster CPU……

Knowledge Navigator

Interestingly the last concept product Apple demo’d in 1987 (pre Jobs) was the awesome Knowledge Navigator. It has it all, although the AI is pretty smart, it isn’t smart enough to loose the dickiebow. 20 years later, this technology still isn’t available, although bits and pieces are there on various things, overall it’s just a designers wet dream.

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It seem’s that Apple needs to have someone working full time on quality control of Apps and their listings on the store. They also really need to enable the ability to either complain or contact them directly if someone thinks something is awry and an app needs a re-review.

I feel the App Store system is working quite well but it seems that once a dev is ‘in’ theres no real test of worth for their apps.
Nullsofts SOCKS proxy app as a perfect example of the exact opposite of the rule is true also. Nullsofts App is legit and falls within Apples guides – yet it gets pulled, presumably because of AT&T’s connection sharing rules – rules that are relevant to AT&T’s market and could be legit elsewhere. Not only did they pull the App (twice!) but they didn’t even bother to contact the dev with an explanation or even notification that it had happened.

We don’t want Apple become big brother but some common sense – ‘Does the world need this?’ questions need to be asked. And if they need to be asked, someone needs to be employed to ask them.

What I don’t get is that the $US999 I Am Rich app actually makes it live, but that NZ’s own Orsome tvGuide v1.2 takes weeks to get through quality testing processes. Orsome, based on sales numbers alone have proven that it’s a real app, and people are happy to pay, so why can it not be fast tracked?

Orsome's tvGuide App

I still think overall though that this is all just a teething process for Apple, the iphone and it’s distribution model. If things didn’t go wrong – it would be just weird. Long term, they’ve made a great way of end users to have a simple and easy way to get extra features for their phone. No need for manuals, complex distribution and install procedures.

UPDATE Apparently 8 people actually brought that I Am Rich app before it was pulled…..

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I had posted this a while ago on the forums but I feel it’s as much a review/blog post and thought I would also update it with my long term experiences.

Recently purchased a refurbished MacBook Pro via Apples online store.
I was a little unsure of how ‘refurbished’ my new laptop would be – is it second hand? is it a lemon from someone else?
If there was one reason I could be reasonably sure of quality is that all refurbs come with the standard 12 month international warranty and Applecare can be added at anytime in the first 12 months. Giving you 3 years total hardware coverage available anywhere in the world. The cost of Applecare does increase the price by another $495 – and it’s a must have. My last MacbookPro purchase was a 17″ 1st Gen MacBookPro – and after 2 years of problems has the whole machine replaced via Applecare. Although not perfect, the service from Apple was complete and I feel you do get a more complete warranty cover than other Notebook brands.

Anyway, back to the refurb, I had heard stories that some people recieved units in America with (*gasp*) fingerprints on it but over all found an almost new computer. Apple was listing a current generation 15″ Macbook Pro (2.4Ghz C2D Penryn, 2gb, 200gb HD, 8600GT 256MB) listed at 22% off the RRP.
No matter how ‘used’ the computer could be, these models were only introduced 6 months ago, I knew the machine couldn’t be that beat up. So I ordered the computer.
It was 4.06pm on Monday.
It arrived 10.31am Tuesday (yes the very next day).
From Sydney!
Seriously scary service! I’ve order things from Auckland and they’ve taken longer to arrive. Shipping is done via TNT and all the necessary taxes are dealt with on Apples end. A paper reciept arrives a week later via the snail mail, funnily enough my credit card was charges as ‘iTunes New Zealand’.

As it’s a refurb, the unit came in a nondiscript whte box, with the computer surrounded in some solid yet basic padding and a long white Apple branded box (with all the standard cables/DVD/clothes inside).
Leopard was installed by default (as it is on all refurbs from Apple).

I took the computer out and it looked mint. I gave it a smell, it smelled brand new (you know the smell). It looked brand new. To be honest you wouldn’t know it wasn’t a fresh out of the box orginal if I threw it in a similar box.
The battery was brand new (as was the power adaptor) and showed 1 charge.

I don’t need to take you on a full review of the comp, I’ve written this to pass on my experience of Apple Refurbishments more than cover a 15″ MacbookPro.  So I got what seems to be a brand new $NZ3200 laptop for $2499 – A real bargin. I would highly recommended this way to get a good deal on a Mac. If you want to see what current deals are available look for the link on the bottom left side of the site – there’s plenty of iMacs, Macbooks/MacbookPro’s and even Air’s and AppleTV’s.

And finally, what’s broke? theres a couple of slight issues

The left side USB port isn’t quite flush with the casing. This is inside the case not outside, and the plug still fits all the USB cables I’ve tried, so it as much an aesthetic (and microscopic) issue.

Also I’ve had a total of 4 occourances of a strange banding in the bottom of the screen similar to the pic below. It isn’t life threatening and looks likely to be software more than hardware. I could kick up a fuss and get it replaced but for now it’s just not a biggie.

MacBook Pro liney's from Apple Discussion user 'Docfilm'

Since buying this my flatmate also took advantage of the same deal (15″ MacBook Pro) and his came in exactly the same state – a seemingly brand new laptop and a lower price.