In what must have been some marvelous licensing legal wizardry, The Financial Times is reporting that Apple has signed a deal with News Corp’s 20th Century Fox studio to provide an online video-on-demand service. The service will allow consumers to rent the latest Fox DVD releases by downloading a digital copy from Apple’s iTunes platform for a limited time.

Both Apple and Fox are officially quiet about the deal and the Financial Times says that it is likely the deal will be announced at Macworld on January 14th.

The deal goes beyond movie rentals in that Apple will also for the first time extend its FairPlay digital rights management system beyond its own products.

A digital file protected by FairPlay will be included in new Fox DVD releases, enabling film content to be transferred or “ripped” from the disc to a computer and video iPod. DVD content can already be moved to an iPod but this requires special software and is considered piracy by some studios.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Fox, video, iTunes, Fairplay, DRM, online video rental

I just checked Google analytics for the daily stats at Digital Podcast and I saw the biggest one time increase in daily visitors and page views. Digital Podcast’s traffic jumped up by 80% on Christmas day. I looked at the distribution of search terms for some anomaly, but it wasn’t there. Search terms remained consistent in their distribution.

I think that people got lots of iPods, Zunes and the like for Christmas and went looking for content.

I also think that Christmas day has probably become the biggest day ever for the music industry thanks to iTunes cards. I know for sure that’s the case in my home as my daughter spent her $30 iTunes gift cards before noon and my son spent his by 4pm. That’s the first time either of them has bought music online and it didn’t take long.

No wonder Apple’s stock almost hit $200 per share.

Technorati Tags: ipod, Apple, iTunes, Zune, Microsoft

Apple and T-Mobile today announced that T-Mobile will be the exclusive German carrier of Apple’s revolutionary iPhone when it makes its debut in Germany on November 9.

iPhone is scheduled to go on sale on November 9 and will be sold in Germany through Telekom Shops of Deutsche Telekom and the T-Mobile web shop. iPhone requires a new 2-year T-Mobile tariff and will be available in an 8GB model for €399 including V.A.T. and will work with either a PC or Mac.

Technorati Tags: iphone, apple, t-mobile, tmobile

Dealing with the fallout from the recently announced iPhone price cut seems to be Apple’s biggest issue of the day. It’s too bad they got greedy to start with as everyone knew the original price was way too high to be sustainable.

Here’s the apology:

To all iPhone customers:

I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.

First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it. iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to ‘go for it’ this holiday season. iPhone is so far ahead of the competition, and now it will be affordable by even more customers. It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone ‘tent’. We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season.

Second, being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you’ll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon. The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.

Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned.

We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.

Steve Jobs
Apple CEO