Itunes Movie Talks Hints at Apple’s Living Room Plans

Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs has been talking with executives at major motion picture studios such as Disney, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, and Universal about eventually offering full-length movie downloads on its popular iTunes online store. Considering the current popularity of television show downloads, viewable on iPod handheld devices, adding movies to the line-up seems to be the next logical step. These discussions with movie studios have renewed rumors that Apple is preparing to offer a living room-oriented entertainment device this year, prior to the winter shopping season, to further diversify its product mix in the entertainment industry. Talks have been confidential; however, it is known that Jobs is recommending a fixed price of $9.99 for each movie download and that he wants to have a deal in place by Autumn. Disney is speculated to be the first company to introduce movies to the iTunes store because of Jobs’ affiliation with Disney through Pixar Animation Studios.

“Consumers have been willing to spend 99 US cents to buy Shakira’s “Hips
Don’t Lie”or $1.99 for an episode of “Desperate Housewives: from
iTunes. Now, Steve Jobs is betting they will also pay $9.99 to
download “The Godfather” to play on their iPods”

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