Today's evidence comes to you courtesy of the Apple iPhone. iPhone Developer Pumpkin. He has discovered even more rental-specific information, this time in the iPhone's lockdown daemon file. Lockdown is responsible for authorizing your iPhone for services. For example the lockdown files are involved in authorizing phone service and is also responsible for communication between the device and the computer in general
A string search through the lockdownd executable in /usr/libexec produced the following hits when searched for "rental":
pumpkin:~ pumpkin$ strings /usr/local/share/iphone-filesystem/usr/libexec/lockdownd | grep -i rental
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not retrieve FairPlayID
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not initialize FairPlay context
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not verify the rental bag response: %d
load_rental_bag_request: Could not retrieve FairPlayID
load_rental_bag_request: Could not initialize FairPlay context
load_rental_bag_request: Could not generate rental bag request
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create mutable dictionary
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFData from request message
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFArray
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFNumber from indice
RentalBagResponse
RentalBagRequest
pumpkin:~ pumpkin$As of last night, Apple still did not have a public rentalBag web objects interface the way it does for storeBag and secureBag, the two XML files it publishes on its Phobos server. Hopefully, once readers start occasionally pinging http://phobos.apple.com/rentalBag.xml.gz and http://phobos.apple.com/rentalBag.xml, you'll let us know via the Tip line if and when you see any life.
Thanks PlanetBeing
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-21-2007 @ 1:26PM
WillGonz said...
I hope they do a per month plan similar to NetFlix. But they might not. It is going to be a tough market with Pay Per View, Xbox marketplace, Online rentals, and Piracy.
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11-21-2007 @ 2:10PM
Galley said...
I predict video rentals, Hi-Def content in the iTunes Store and Apple TV 2.0 at Macworld 2008.
Reply
11-21-2007 @ 2:17PM
Steven said...
This is probably going to make Apple a lot of money, but it is going to be full of DRM.
Reply
11-21-2007 @ 3:33PM
geochick said...
Retals is the next step in the iTunes content offerings no big news there... the issue is the pricing structure (per movie, monthly subscription fee, or a mix of the two).
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11-21-2007 @ 4:41PM
mdnetguru said...
I stumbled on this some weeks ago, posted about it here (the comment): http://digg.com/apple/Rentals_Evidence_In_iTunes_7_5?t=10504821#c10504821
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11-22-2007 @ 1:49PM
Rob said...
@WillGonz: Honestly, I think the last thing we need is another monthly subscription method. I've been dying for a one-off online rental plan, and I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting it...
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11-24-2007 @ 12:14AM
ominx said...
I really hope the pay per view rental model is adopted for the AppleTV. At this point, iTunes is worthless on my HDTV and the Vudu box (vudu.com) is looking more and more appealing everyday.
I doubt Apple is going to sit this one out and watch the competition pass them by. I give it 3 months before we see HD and PPV rentals on the iTunes store.
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12-28-2007 @ 5:22PM
larry said...
A pay per view of 1.99 would be a sweet price point. I would pay more dollars per year on this than on buying movies.
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