John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

With All Due Respect, Sir, I Don’t Think We Can Backdate iTunes Movie Inventory

With the Apple TV Take Two, we think we have it right this time. I think we have a great product.”

Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, Jan. 23

Promises, promises, promises … When Apple (AAPL) debuted iTunes Movie Rentals this past January, the company pledged to offer “over 1,000 titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles in stunning high-definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound.” Well, today’s March 4 and, as best I can tell, Apple hasn’t kept its promise. Browse iTunes this morning with the software’s “Power Search,” and you’ll find just 411 films for rent–91 of them available in high definition. That’s 589 short of the promised 1,000–a discrepancy of nearly 60%.

Seems Apple may not have Apple TV quite right yet after all–the Hollywood licensing part of it, anyway.

UPDATE: At the Apple shareholder meeting yesterday, CEO Steve Jobs confirmed the discrepancy, saying the company’s goal of 1,000 rental titles on iTunes was short by around 600.

Twitter’s Tanking

December 30, 2013 at 6:49 am PT

2013 Was a Good Year for Chromebooks

December 29, 2013 at 2:12 pm PT

BlackBerry Pulls Latest Twitter for BB10 Update

December 29, 2013 at 5:58 am PT

Apple CEO Tim Cook Made $4.25 Million This Year

December 28, 2013 at 12:05 pm PT

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The problem with the Billionaire Savior phase of the newspaper collapse has always been that billionaires don’t tend to like the kind of authority-questioning journalism that upsets the status quo.

— Ryan Chittum, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review about the promise of Pierre Omidyar’s new media venture with Glenn Greenwald