Apple seems to have removed $0.99 TV show rentals from iTunes and Apple TV. In a statement provided to Wall Street Journal technology blog, All Things D, Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr explained:

“iTunes customers have shown they overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows. iTunes in the Cloud lets customers download and watch their past TV purchases from their iOS devices, Apple TV, Mac or PC allowing them to enjoy their programming whenever and however they choose.”

Fox seems to confirm the reasoning:

“After carefully considering the results of the rental trial, it became clear that content ownership is a more attractive long-term value proposition both for iTunes customers and for our business. To further enhance the value of ownership, we are working with Apple to make content available within their new cloud-based service.”

Apple announced $0.99 TV Show rentals are part of the all new, all streaming Apple TV in 2010 but never got all the US networks on board, nor did they manage to roll the service out beyond the US. While networks likely felt $0.99 undervalued their content, let’s be clear — it overvalued it. $100 for 100 hours of non-repeatable TV is ridiculous. Subscriptions, which Apple has reportedly been pursuing, make far more sense at scale and volume. Whether the networks will ever agree to that or not is the question. (And at this point there’s no evidence iCloud, despite its ideal positioning, will be part of the answer.)

At least we can take some comfort in the fact that nature has shown in knows what to do to dinosaurs.

[All Things D]

TiPb’s gotten lots of reports from iPhone, iPad and Apple TV users concerning super slow iTunes rentals and downloads — we’re talking hours and hours! — and it looks like Google DNS (and OpenDNS) could be part of the problem. According to Joe Mailer:

This totally makes sense. iTunes’ video content is delivered by Akamai who has distributed massive datastores around the world so those large files originate from nearby servers and spend less time getting switched around the network. Akamai somehow uses our DNS routing to determine our location. If Google DNS or OpenDNS routes everyone to Akamai the same way, then those Akamai nodes and the pipes leading to them get overwhelmed.

So if your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or Apple TV tells you there are 2+ hours to go before you can start watching check to see if you’re using Google DNS or OpenDNS and try switching to your IPs DNS instead. It could cut your wait times down to seconds!

[Joe Mailer]

Rent a movie from iTunes on Windows or Mac and stream it to your new Apple TV (2010) and it never starts Hollywood’s 24h-48h countdown, which means you have 30 days to enjoy them as much as you want. Here’s the steps as MacRumors outlines them:

We’ve successfully tested this procedure on latest iTunes (thanks to forum user TheBritishBloke), and it works (at least in the short term as the new Apple TV hasn’t been out for 30 days):

• Rent a show/movie on your Mac’s iTunes
• When you begin watching the rental on the Apple TV, no warnings appear indicating that you must finish watching the movie within 24/48 hours
• The iTunes rental counter should still show 29+ days remaining
• Note: if you do try to watch the movie through iTunes, it will kick off the 24/48 hour countdown

No doubt Apple will patch this either on the Apple TV iOS firmware, or iTunes desktop side — or both — so get your value out of them while you can.

For more, see our complete Apple TV (2010) review.

UPDATE: Ugh, or maybe not. iLounge claims the 24/48 window is triggered all stealthy like and MacRumors is continuing their investigation. We edging the bleed here folks!

[MacRumors]

“People familiar with the situation” (yes, them again) have told the Wall Street Journal that both Fox and ABC are good to go on $0.99 iTunes TV show rentals, and will be announced later today at Apple’s special music event. Since ABC is owned by Disney, whose largest shareholder is Steve Jobs, their getting on board isn’t a huge surprise. Likewise, Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox, introduced Jobs at D8 and is all up in Apple rescuing print media (like the Wall Street Journal) and TV alike.

NBC, recently sold to Comcast — whose cable empire would compete with iTunes — and CBS, who likely isn’t sure what these new fangled ‘puters and gizmos are all about anyway, is disappointing but also not surprising.

How this will mix and match with Netflix and other, similar apps already on iPad and iPhone — and rumored to be coming to a new Apple TV — is also unknown. $0.99 a pop might not be enough for myopic media companies, but compared to a far bigger Netflix pipe at $10-$15 per month, it’s likely too much for high volume consumers.

[Wall Street Journal]

Chad says we buried the lede: Bloomberg also claims Apple’s annual special music — and this time TV — event will be held September 7. That’s not official, of course. We’ll only know for sure when Apple sends out the invitations.

Remember those rumors of $0.99 iTunes TV show rentals? They’re back. This time with word that FOX-owner Newcorp is in “advanced talks” over the service. CBS and Disney (which has Steve Jobs as their largest share holder) are also rumored to be involved.

Rentals would last 48hrs and would bring even more content to the newly launched iPad and iPhone 4, and upcoming iPod touch 4 and… iOS Apple TV/iTV?

According to Bloomberg Apple originally wanted to offer subscription a la carte TV, which failed due to networks not wanting to put their relationships with cable companies in jeopardy. (Sigh).

While a la cart TV exists outside the US (I pay $20 for 20 a la carte channels on my provider) it hasn’t been adopted by existing American providers. Would $0.99 rentals be a good alternative? Just one show a day would average $30 a month, so even if it’s a step in the right direction, it’s a tiny little hesitant one. And it doesn’t even begin to address live sporting events.

In an ideal world iTunes and iOS would be a complete, non-linear, on-demand TV replacement. Absent that, are individual ABC, Hulu +, and MLB apps are better solution? Or do we really have to wait for the dinosaurs of old media to become extinct simply so that consumers can pay them to watch what we want, when we want, and where we want?

[Bloomberg]

Long the [out-of-wedlock] stepchildren of the iTunes experience, Canada and the UK got some small measure of love a while back with the addition of TV shows, albeit primarily local and cable fare, like CBC and BBC respectively. But where were our movies? What about our (pricey) Apple Take 2 rentals?

Today Apple finally bestowed cinema on her Majesties loyal subjects, home and commonwealth alike:

Your favourite Hollywood movies are now available to download from the iTunes Store and watch instantly. Rent new releases for just $4.99 and other library titles for just $3.99, or buy movies and own them forever. Sit back and enjoy the show on your computer, take it on the road with your iPod—or view movies in stunning high definition with Apple TV.

In Canada, purchased movies seem to range from $9.99 to an expensive $19.99 for new releases (hey, studios, seen the power of le loonie lately?) while in the UK, rentals will fetch a premium £2.49 to £3.49, and purchases, £6.99 and £10.99.

Like the US, HD Movies are reserved exclusively for direct-to-Apple TV rental (thanks Big Media!), but it seems we might just get to enjoy them for 48 hrs. instead of the miserly 24 in the US.

One drawback? Canada already has steep data rates and stingy data caps (low end accounts offer a paltry 1-2GB a month, with high overage charges). Unlimited accounts can also be slower (low end toping out at 1.5 Mbps). Add to that the potential for cable and telecos to throttle what might seem to them to be competing offerings (to Rogers and Bell on-demand or PPV services, for example), and it will make for some interesting politics.

While the telcos may argue that the post office doesn’t deliver Netflix for free, it’s not like end users see the shipping charges either. It may end up that Apple has to deal with the Big Pipe devils same way they do with Hollywood and the carriers…

UPDATE: I had to reset the settings (not restore to factory, just reset) on the Apple TV in order to get it to offer up some movies, which meant reconnecting it to sync and stream from iTunes.

They’ve sold 4 Billion songs, 125 million TV shows, and 7 million movies. However, that 7 million mark is lower than they’d prefer. So today, Jobs has announced iTunes Movies Rentals.

On board – every major movie studio! Steve presented them with a “and by the way.” They will launch with 1000 films by the end of February. They will be on iTunes 30 days after their DVD release. You can watch on iPhone.

You can also start watching within 30 seconds of downloading. You have 30 days to begin watching, then once it starts you have 24 hours to watch it. You can also transfer even as you’re watching.

Older titles will be $2.99, new releases are 3.99. It launches today and free software updates are available for all compatible devices (iTunes, iPods, and iPhones)!

Movie rentals will also be available in HD quality for $1.00 more (That’s $3.99 for DVD quality and $4.99 for HD quality). You can also shop for these movies directly from your television with Apple TV 2.