2008 in review: The year in digital media

In a year when Apple focused most of its energy on the iPhone 3G, matters of the cloud, and updated computers, its digital media efforts continued at a steady—and incrementally more interesting—pace.

Movies, movies, movies

At January’s Macworld Expo, Apple took another whack at making the Apple TV more than just a hobby. Having realized that a set-top box that streams media from a computer to an attached TV and AV media system is a tough sell—regardless of whose logo is tattooed into the case—Apple attempted to give the Apple TV a leg-up by announcing that movie rentals would become a part of the iTunes Store’s catalog. Playable on computers, compatible iPods, iPhones, and Apple TVs, these rentals would be accessible directly from the Apple TV (running the 2.0 software)—no more trotting over to the computer to download content and then sync or stream it to the Apple TV.

Unlike in the past, the Apple TV Take 2 software allowed the device to play HD-quality video (720p) and 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound.

At that time you still had to purchase movies on your computer and then sync or stream those movies to the Apple TV—only rentals could be downloaded directly from the iTunes Store to the device. In May Apple made it possible to purchase movies on the Apple TV.

Welcome as rentals were to the iTunes Store, there were a couple of flies in the ointment. The availability of content was first. Apple promised 1,000 movie rentals by the end of February but missed the mark by just over two months. The Store’s catalog increased over time to the point where, by year’s end, it boasts over 2,750 rental movies.

2008 brought movie rentals to the iTunes Store.

A concern that remains unaddressed is the miserly rental time. Although you can wait to play a rented movie for up to 30 days, once you start playing the movie you have just 24-hours to complete watching it. Fortunately, there’s a desperation measure for extending playback of your rented movies. (Essentially, pausing your movie and not touching the Apple TV again until you’re ready to resume playback.)

Into the stream

Although the Apple TV didn’t take off in 2008, neither did any other set-top box. What did take off, however, was the notion of streaming content to the living room. Apple was certainly in there pitching, but so too was Roku with its Netflix Player and Western Digital’s WD TV. And on the Web, Boxee drew interest as a way to stream content from Hulu, SHOUTcast, The WB, MTVMusic, and NetFlix (computer only, no Apple TV support).

Subscriptions slipping

If anyone harbored hopes that movie rentals were to presage a move to an iTunes subscription service, those hopes should have been dashed by the masses’ continued disinterest in music subscription services. In February 2008 Yahoo! Music Unlimited announced that its subscription music service was about to become very limited, as in non-existent. Yahoo’s current customers were shuttled to Rhapsody, another subscription service that has managed to survive, if not thrive.

For more Mac news, visit Macworld. Story copyright Mac Publishing, LLC.