In recent years Apple has “accidentally” revealed upcoming products and services on a fairly regular basis. They do this either in their on-line store, or sometimes just in parts of their own software that aren't unlocked until a revision comes out.
That would seem to be the case with the new iTunes movie rental service:
“Movie rentals could be coming to the iTunes Store, if an apparent slip-up by Apple is any indication. Mac developer David Watanabe uploaded a screenshot depicting an iTunes problem reporting system which has options for requesting a refund due to non-delivery of rental movies. The other options for reporting issues with the as yet unannounced -- but rumored -- rental movie options on the iTunes Store include accidental purchase, poor content quality, duplicate purchase, wrong version, bad metadata, and "other." The same possible complaints are available for every other content type on iTunes. We verified that these options are still viewable on a US iTunes Store account: see for yourself by viewing your account purchase history, clicking report problem, and then clicking on an individual purchase.“
Blockbuster has recently started to make serious inroads in the on-line movie rental industry, and it will certainly be worth watching to see if these two titans dukes it out, or shake hands and collaborate in some way.
What do you think of an iTunes video rental service?