However, Apple may rely on price and not longevity to lure in customers, according to the magazine. While some rentals will cost $5 each -- placing their rental prices close to those of new releases at retail outlets -- some will cost as little as $2.
No mention is made of the reasoning for the price system, though it may parallel Apple's variable price system for purchased movies, which discounts older titles.
The claimed sources also mirror information reported previously which suggests that Disney and Fox are the only two studios known to be pledging support for rentals. Other studios friendly to Apple's video efforts, such as Lionsgate, MGM, and Paramount, are described as candidates. Conversely, studios such as Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. have "various competitive reasons" to keep their videos out of the service, Variety adds.
The latter may allude to Apple's spat with NBC-Universal, which has seen NBC TV shows pulled from iTunes. Universal Music Group has also opted out of long-term iTunes music contracts and excluded Apple from its protection-free music offerings.
Like all reports so far, however, the trade publication is certain about the date: its purported insiders state that Apple will announce movie rentals at next month's Macworld San Francisco expo.
Cocoa developer time-saver: SparkleZip 1.1
Filed under: Freeware, Developer
SparkleZip is a free utility with a very self-explanatory name. Drag your application onto its icon and it will read your CFBundleVersion and generate a properly named zip file, ready for appcasting. It's a few seconds shaved off of release time and a great way to prevent mishaps, given that the current version of Sparkle is not overly forgiving once an appcast is published. Meanwhile, those seconds you just saved can go towards working on your next release which, by the way, we heard was going to be awesome.
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Liven up Address Book with Avatars
Filed under: Freeware
Is your Address Book full of web-savvy friends who know what a Gravatar (or a Pavatar) is? Avatars is a freeware plugin for Address Book that searches for, displays, and adds your contacts' avatars to their cards. It installs with a package installer as a SIMBL plugin, and it looks to me like SIMBL is in the package, too, just in case you need it. It's simple, useful and has the right amount of eye candy to be visually interesting without being intrusive. Now I just need more friends with avatars.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Beta Beat: Screenium
Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Beta Beat
Screencasting is becoming a standard method of conveying software-related information. I'm fairly certain that even my mom knows the word, which is my typical buzz-guage. And here you were, thinking "I wish there was yet another contender in the screencast recording arena", right? Lucky you.Synium's Screenium, which is currently in beta preview, is a new arrival in an already teeming category of software. It has standard features like fullscreen, fixed area and mouse-follow capture, hotkey integration and adjustable quality/frame rate with capture presets. It also boasts a single window capture mode and frame rates up to 60fps. I don't know why you'd need to capture a screen at 60fps, but it can't hurt to know it's available.
In my testing, Screenium performed exceptionally well in the area of small filesize, high quality captures and its default presets were simple and useful. It also gets high marks for ease of use. And it didn't max out my CPU and turn my fans into Harrier jets after 2 minutes, which is kind of nice when you're recording microphone audio. It's got some distance to cover before the official release in February, but Screenium is looking like a strong contender.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox is not the only Hollywood movie studio confirmed to be offering rentals of its movie catalog through iTunes, the New York Times reports.
Echoing the Financial Times claim made earlier in the week, the New York paper alleges that multiple sources are aware that "more than one" movie production house is committed to the project, which will reportedly be unveiled during the Macworld San Francisco keynote in mid-January.
Since the initial rumor surfaced, many have suggested the self-evident possibility that Walt Disney and its subdivisions are the most likely candidates: Apple chief Steve Jobs currently sits on Disney's board of directors and is credited with bringing the studio's movies to iTunes for the current purchase-only strategy.
Whichever studios are involved, Apple has not had much success concealing its plans. The company's iTunes feedback system inadvertently revealed rented movies as an option, while other reports have shown rental code within iTunes itself.
iPhone 1.1.3 features leaked through photos?
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Fire up that chunk of your brain known as the Macworld Rumourbuster, readers! With just a little over two weeks before Macworld kicks off, let's officially call the crowd to order, and let the rumour-mongering, blurry 'leaked' pictures, and Photoshop-ing begin. 
Now that you've 
