I’m headed to San Fransisco this week and I want to watch a movie or 2 on my flights. So I thought I’d give the iTunes Movie Rental a try because I don’t want to buy a movie and I’ve never used the Movie Rental service.

Here’s my task: Find and rent 2 movies. Both must be suitable for a younger audience since the person next to me might be a kid. Sounds easy, right? It was the exact opposite…

Opened up iTunes and clicked on the Top Movie Rentals – not sure how these movies are selected for the “top” list or if they’ve been there for a day, a week or a month. First problem: the movie photos are too small. I had to lean towards the screen for a better look. Plus, nothing in the Top 10 appealed to me so I headed to Sci-Fi.

Yuck. 8 Star Trek movies featured and a bunch of older movies I’ve never seen in the top jukebox area. This is not going well.

Comedy Section. Again, old movies featured – A Fish Called Wanda, Zoolander, Mean Girls and The Princess Bride. Of course The Princess Bride is a fantastic movie, but I’ve seen it a hundred times and I can watch it almost every Sunday on cable.

Where Are The New Releases? Extremely disappointed after only 5 minutes of looking because there is no list of new releases – just All Rentals which only shows 59 movies. I’m guessing that’s 59 Comedies, but it doesn’t tell you for sure.

Action And Adventure. Finally I found the first movie I’ll rent: The Assassination of Jesse James. Never seen it and I hope it’s good. It was listed under Action & Adventure, but the page for the actual movie says it’s a Drama. WTF?

Renting Terms Anyone? I clicked the “rent movie” button for Jesse James and it’s downloading now and I don’t have a clue what the terms are for a rental. It didn’t mention how many times I could watch it or a date when the movie would be made unavailable. Hmm. Might want to list that somewhere Apple – on each movie’s page or when you begin the download perhaps.

I’ve decided to just rent one movie because I’m tired of fumbling through the iTunes Movie Rentals.

Download Complete. The Assassination of Jesse James has been downloaded and it’s showing up in the new Rented Movies section of my Library in iTunes. It says “29 days” and nothing else. Can I watch it as many times as I want in 29 days or can I only watch it once? Again, no further information given.

When Can I Watch? After I transferred the movie to my iPhone, I tried to watch it. I was given a popup message that said:

“Do you want to play this rented movie? It will expire 24 hours after you start watching it.”

Then it gave me the option to cancel or click OK to play the movie. I canceled because I’ll watch it on my flight in a couple of days.

iTunes Movie Rental Store: A Real Bummer

My guess is the picture and sound quality will be excellent when I finally watch the movie – and that’s what’s most important. BUT… there are problems with the iTunes Movie Rentals.

1. No New Releases. I expected to see a menu option for new releases – just like physically driving to a movie rental store like Blockbuster or Hollywood Video – and that’s why I had a crappy experience. I understand that this is digital and it’s different online, but I can’t be the only person who wants to see new releases right? How am I supposed to find the recent movies I missed in the theater? Help a guy out Apple! I’d rent all the time if I Apple gave me a list of movies that I forgot about over the past 6 months or year.
2. Old, Crappy Movies = Poor Selection. Heaping piles of two-decade old movies don’t appeal to me. How many people in this day and age want to watch Tootsie again? That flick came out in 1982! You telling me they’ll enjoy it again because it’s digital and the sound is crisper? Awful. Apple needs to get more recent movies in there… fast.

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