They may be first to see the sun, but they've been waiting quite a while for movie rentals and purchases from the iTunes store -- now that patience has paid off, as movies have now arrived in a land down under. Aussie and Kiwi iTunes users can purchase and rent movies to their hearts' content. New releases on DVD will premiere day-and-date on the iTunes store at the same time as they're on sale in physical form in the two new countries of service.

iTunes movie purchases in Australia will kick off the price tier at A$9.99 for catalog titles, A$17.99 for recent releases and A$24.99 for new releases; rentals will be A$3.99 for library title rentals and A$5.99 for new releases. iTunes movies in New Zealand start at NZ$9.99 for catalog title purchases, NZ$17.99 for recent releases and NZ$24.99 for new releases, rentals are NZ$4.99 for library titles / NZ$6.99 for new releases. As in the US store, getting the high-def version costs an additional dollar. Rentals can be held for 30 days before you start watching and then you have 48 hours to finish (a whole day longer than US customers? Must be the International Date Line).

Thanks to everyone who sent this in

At the most recent World Wide Developer's Conference, Steve Jobs listed the countries that will see iPhone availability once the 3G model is released. As we approach the big day, more retailers are announcing their plans.

This week, Vodafone announced details of the New Zealand launch. Specifically, three Vodafone branches will host a midnight sale on Friday, July 11. Those branches are

• 171 Queen St., Auckland City
• 358 Lambton Quay, Wellington
• 681 Colombo Street Christchurch

Other stores will open with 3G iPhones on the shelves at 9:00 AM. No details on specific pricing or data plans, but Vodafone says that this page will be updated with those details later in the week.

Mark your calendars. Next Wednesday, 13 December, is the Apple one-day shopping event for New Zealand, the apparent "Black Wednesday" for the new Apple store. Details are still quite sparse, although you can visit the promo page that's been set up to get a rough idea about the event.

It looks like many items will have free shipping and it can only be hoped that prices are reduced enough to make Renaissance blush in shame.

Thanks Graham

After tons of rumors and speculation, the New Zealand iTunes store debuted today. The online store offers over two million songs, with individual tracks priced at NZ$1.79, music videos at NZ$3.59 and many albums at NZ$17.99. Many New Zealand artists are featured exclusively in the New Zealand store, including Fat Freddy's Drop, Brooke Fraser, Tim Finn, The Datsuns and Bic Runga as well as extensive catalogues from New Zealand greats including Shihad, Crowded House, The Black Seeds, Breaks Co-Op, Elemeno P and Dei Hamo.

The New Zealand Herald reports that locals are looking forward to the anticipated opening of iTunes New Zealand. It's been a long time coming. Rumors about iTunesNZ have been floating around for nearly three years without the appearance of an actual storefront. Insiders in the NZ music industry report that local labels are now in active negotiations with Apple and that the new storefront may appear before the end of the year.

Thanks Al.

Like Tim Gaden over at Hawk Wings, I too love Mac OS X's highly underrated Services menu, and Robert Stainsby has released a very handy addition to it: MappingService. This clever service allows you to select an address from any application, say a website, a document or an IM, and simply chose 'Map' from your Services menu to generate a map in any one of three mapping services: Google Maps (of course), ZoomIn Australia or ZoomIn New Zealand.

MappingService is known to work on 10.4.6 and might possibly work on earlier versions of Mac OS X. It is open source software released under the BSD license, and Robert is accepting donations for his fine work.