According to a post on the Ars technica website those of us in the UK will soon have the ability, finally, to buy Movies and TV shows direct from the iTunes store.
It’s been a long, long time coming for sure, hopefully there’s some truth to the rumours as it seems such an big gap in the UK iTunes store offering, it would surely be very successful, assuming the price point isn’t too high.
The following quote comes from the article on Ars Technica:
Unfortunately, we still don’t have news for you about overall European deployment of iTunes movies, but we do have news about the UK. Trusted sources inside the company have told Ars that Apple plans to introduce movies and TV shows to iTunes UK very soon?as in, a couple of weeks.
Finally a reason to get an AppleTV?
If this is true then that’s pretty good news for all those UK purchasers of the AppleTV, now you’ll be able to buy some movies in a compatible format for once! Although the number of online sources for purchasing Movie downloads is increasing, invariably they all sing to the same tune of Windows Media Player and accompanying Windows-only DRM. The fact that the BBC’s iPlayer offering is also Windows-only means there are not a lot of options for mac users.
What sort of content will be available to download is anyone’s guess, I just hope that it isn’t too crippled a list of series to be purchased. I’m thinking that given the amount of hassle I’ve been having with my Sky broadband and general lack of excitement over the current programming that I would consider being able to purchase series such as Lost and Battlestar Galactica straight from iTunes a very attractive alternative to renewing my Sky contract once my 12 month minimum term is up! I’ve got a longer post about my experience with Sky coming up shortly ;)
~Rick
This isn't true. there are currently no plans in place for movie rentals/downloads via itunes uk. Apple US are very close to signing a deal with major distibutors but there is no telling whether or not the UK will be granted access to these and other movies which are already freely available on itunes us.
My suggestion for movie downloads would be to try other sites which are compatible and lets face it alot cheaper than itunes. Even if the boffins in america choose to let uk customers have access to the movies, they will be a lot more expensive than what our american cousins pay. They pay around $10 for a movie. i can guarantee that if we are given this privilage we will have to fork out upwards of £10. One may ask why bother, just go out and buy the dvd?