Appletell

The much anticipated animated movie from PIXAR, WALL*E, arrived at movie theaters today. I wanted to read the reactions that early viewers had of the movie, so I checked a few websites. What I found was fascinating. Naturally, the movie received rave reviews; that wasn’t the surprising part. What’s interesting is the fact that there are Apple references scattered throughout the movie.

See what people found after the break.

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Hate rushing to the store to make sure you are able to get one of the few copies available of your favorite movie on the day of its DVD release?  We’ve all been there, and it sucks.  Well, Apple has now come to the rescue.  You are now able to purchase iTunes movies on the same day as their hard copy DVD release.  This deal covers a ton of studios, including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Lionsgate.  The new releases go for $14.99 currently at the iTunes store.

“We’re thrilled to bring iTunes Store customers new films for purchase day-and-date with the DVD release,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We think movie fans will love being able to buy their favorites from major and independent studios.”

It was going to happen eventually, and I’m glad the time has finally come.  Could this be one of the largest steps in a while towards moving completely to digital entertainment, or is there still a long way to go?

iTunes movies look to have been very successful. Apple has managed to get contracts with all the major movie studios, and their child companies. Almost every new hit movie will be on the iTunes Store, ready for downloading in an iPod-friendly format - to watch on a Mac, PC or iPod. Sillicon Alley Insider is reporting that Disney today announced that 4 million movies had been sold on iTunes - that’s $123 million. Disney also recently announced a digital sales goal of $1 billion; this includes revenue from advertising online (e.g ad revenue from online video viewing or from any of its sites), online games subscriptions, movie and music downloads, and e-commerce that is not related to its theme parks.

iTunes movies are currently limited to the USA only. Steve promised that the rest of the world will be seeing iTunes movie rentals later this year - this should have a huge impact on the revenue from movie sales.

Via [MacRumors]

First Fox did it, and now Lionsgate will be joining them in using iTunes Digital Copy on some DVDs. Digital Copy allows DVDs to be transferred and imported to iTunes in a DRM format, essentially giving buyers multiple ways to watch the movie, rather than simply playing the DVD on a standard player and television. Fox took advantage of this a few months ago, and Lionsgate plans to do the same. The first two titles from Lionsgate to receive the Digital Copy treatment are Rambo and The Eye. Alright, so they didn’t pick the best films, but if you were planning on buying these on DVD anyway, things just got better. Lionsgate says that the Digital Copy will only be included on the special edition DVD and the Blu-ray version. Of course, these two are a bit more pricy than the plain DVD, which is a disadvantage if you’re a chronic DVD buyer and are looking to budget. Lionsgate said that more titles will be released after, and it is rumored that these first Digital Copy versions will be hitting stores sometime this summer.

Via [Ars Technica]

Movies always have had the fanciest gadgets and Adam Christianson from the Maccast Loop thinks that the new MacBook Air was inspired by the Pixar Movie, The Incredibles. In the beginning there is a scene where the Mr. Incredible receives a secret message delivered in an envelope similar to the one featured in the MacBook Air ad. Inside the package is a super-thin tablet computer that he slips out of the envelope. This might just mean that Apple ad agency decided borrow the concept for the new laptop ad. On the podcast he also talked about how Steve Jobs was the CEO of Pixar at the time of the movie which might of inspired him to think up the MacBook Air.

Check out some more pictures after the jump.

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MacHeads: The Movie. When I first saw the trailer for this I thought it was a joke. But this is real. MacHeads is a documentary that shows the lives of the mac addicts and members of the “Cult of Mac”. They interview normal Mac geeks, as well as respected technology journalists like Andy Ihnatko. Many compare this movie to “Trekkies” which documented much of the same, but for sci-fi Star Trek geeks. No one knows when the movie is planned to be released, or if it will be available for rental on the AppleTV through the iTunes Store so that Apple geeks around the world can watch other Apple geeks talk about their cult. If you want to see the official trailer, you can check it out here.

Via [TUAW]

We’ve heard dozens of rumors about iTunes movie rentals - but this rumor seems very realistic - and it is not simply movie rentals as the spectators at Macworld would expect, it’s done in a new kind of way, Apple style. When you insert an iTunes-compatible DVD from Fox to your Mac or PC, iTunes will start up and prompt you to copy the file into your iTunes library. This file will be in H.264 enhanced digital at 1.5mbps. Which is pretty good quality. I’m pretty sure that these files are intended for on-the-go usage. For example, you copy the files into iTunes, transfer to your iPod and watch it on the plane. This is a new system and I think it will work perfectly. The only problem is that these files are likely to be heavily loaded with DRM, and that’s not good news coming from a company that is trying to push the DRM-free format.

A tipster at TUAW, Stewart, said he bought an early copy of a Family Guy DVD due for release on January 15th (Macworld date), and that it was branded iPod-compatible. He posted pictures and screenshots on the TUAW post linked below.

Via [TUAW]

While trying to report a problem in iTunes, Mac developer David Watanabe stumbled upon what could be the beginnings of movie rentals on iTunes. When browsing the reasons you could submit problems under, he discovered some unusual strings, and posted a screenshot of them on Flickr. Among them were: “DidNotReceiveMovie-Renjavascript:promptTag("link");talMovie," “AccidentalPurchase-RentalMovie,” “ContentQuality-RentalMovie,” “DuplicatePurchase-RentalMovie,” “WrongVersion-RentalMovie,” “BadMetadata-RentalMovie” and “Other-RentalMovie.”

It has been rumored for a while that Apple might begin to rent movies on iTunes, as it has been a much-requested feature. Whether these strings actually end up meaning anything, is still up for speculation. Engadget has claimed that these strings have since been removed, though when I went to check for myself, I was greeted with an iTunes prompt stating that “The iTunes Store could not process my request at this time.” Let me know if you have any better luck.

Via [AppleInsider]