Buying, Not Renting: Apple's Future TV Model

You used to be able to rent a single episode of some of your favorite TV shows via iTunes, and access them for a short period for your viewing pleasure. No longer: Apple, in what might seem like a surprising move, sliced the service, which it used to tout as one of iTunes' gems.

Now you have to actually buy an episode for $1.99, though you then own it forever on any device and can watch it over and over wherever. There's some evidence the TV networks themselves were uneasy with the $0.99 rental price but are happier with the $1.99 purchase price (implying users weren't watching many shows more than once--resulting in lower than expected revenues). But really this is all about the cloud, and how Apple's future in content providing will play out. The company just updated its Apple TV code so you can stream purchased TV content directly from Apple's server farms instead of having to download to your iPhone a show you've bought recently on your PC--it frees up your storage space lets you avoid having iTunes constantly open on your home PC.