The company's teaser page still says "coming soon," but eagle-eyed reader Jason spotted the free Zipcar app [iTunes link] in the store today. We've been waiting for this app for quite a while, and it's exciting to see it in action.

The app provides Zipcar members with a location-based search for nearby Zipcar locations, allowing them to drill down to the individual garages via a map view. Reserving a car is as easy as clicking one big green button, and the app allows you to sort available cars by time, type and model to make it easier to find the one you want. You can see your upcoming reservations and cancel a car if you don't need it after all.

Once you get to your car, you can use the virtual keyfob to help find it in the garage by honking the horn (nice touch); while you still need to use your RFID-equipped Zipcard to activate the car's remote unlock and ignition system, once you do that at the beginning of your reservation you can put it back in your wallet and use the iPhone to lock and unlock the car. You can also extend your reservation from the iPhone app, as long as there's open time after your slot ends.

One somewhat quirky thing about the app is that there's no way to adjust your reservation time window except at the 'top' of the car search process; often as not, with the Zipcar website, you may find yourself tweaking the hours of your booking to improve your chances of finding the car you need. The lack of flexibility is noted on the app's iTunes page under "Coming Soon," so a future release will probably improve matters here. The Zipcar app requires iPhone OS 3.0 and works on the iPod touch as well, although most features will require a network connection.

Zipcar members are almost as enthusiastic about the service as iPhone owners are about their devices, so this combination is sure to strike sparks. Once you've got the Zipcar app downloaded, let us know your road trip experiences via the comments below.

If you're a car-free urbanite you've probably seen mention of Zipcar, or noticed one of their branded vehicles out and about. The company offers hourly rental automobiles with a rapid-deployment twist: there's no check-in or checkout process beyond reserving the time online and then swiping your membership card to unlock the car. The vehicles even include gas cards so you can fill up for free while you're on the road. Members are mostly enthusiastic about the convenience and ease of the service; soon, of course, there'll be an app for that.

Zipcar's newsletter and website have announced that the company's iPhone app will be coming soon, and the landing page offers an email signup to be notified when it ships. The promised feature set is a bit lean at the moment, but intriguing: find and reserve cars from the phone, plus the ability to unlock or lock the car from the app. Since the current Zipcar membership cards use RFID chips for the lock sensor, it's not quite clear how the app will accomplish the same trick -- GPS geolocation combined with a secure server connection? Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to the car's sensor? Can't wait to find out.

Davis Freeberg over at Zatz Not Funny has a detailed post this morning on the takedown of the Inside Redbox Mobile app for the iPhone, which was removed from the App Store at the request of Redbox. If you've never heard of Redbox (I hadn't myself before this morning), it runs DVD rental kiosks in hundreds of supermarkets and other retail locations -- you can walk up, rent a movie from the vending machine, and then return it to any other Redbox kiosk.

It's not 100% clear why Redbox objected to the iPhone app; could be a trademark issue, could be that the tool made it too easy to track and use free movie promo codes that ordinarily would require a bit of research. Since most of the functionality is accessible via the redbox.com site anyway, it's fair to ask why Redbox wants to make things more difficult for its customers. Perhaps the rental company has its own iPhone app planned, or it just wants to sort out a few issues with the Inside Redbox developers before giving the green light.

If you used the Inside Redbox app, let us know about your experience.

Got $20US and a hankering for lots and lots of pixels? iTunes has a deal for you: Apple announced earlier today that it is launching HD movie sales and rentals in the iTunes Store, beginning with a small selection of titles (Transporter 3, W. and more) and with a couple of big-ticket films up for pre-order: vamp-rom-teen thriller Twilight drops on 3/21 and James Bond in Quantum of Solace on 3/24. Sales will be $19.99US and rentals will cost $4.99.

Up until now, HD movies had to be purchased rented directly on the Apple TV, although HD television content has been in iTunes since late last year. This is a big step forward for iTunes users and a big 'pptthhbbttt' to the Blu-Ray business model. Keep in mind a few caveats: you'll need iTunes 8.1, and you may want to test your video output path if you've got a DisplayPort-equipped machine and a large external screen (these files are going to be HDCP-enabled, bet on it). Playback quality may not be what you've come to expect from HD media, as the files will still be 720p with H.264 compression -- but be sure to keep plenty of open hard drive space and a clean ISP connection, since they'll weigh in at four GB or more per movie. No word yet on whether the movies will include Dolby Surround audio instead of simple stereo. Looks like Twilight and Quantum will carry the Dolby audio option, though other HD movies may not -- check the rental page for individual titles to be certain.

I'm continually impressed with the quality of streamed and purchased HD video that I play back from my previous-generation MacBook Pro over VGA to a flat-panel 720p TV -- it's not dramatically different from satellite or broadcast HD, at least to my verging-on-middle-aged eyes. The opportunity to buy or rent HD movies might make the Mac mini media center even more appealing.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

Mac developer David Watanabe posts a very interesting picture to Flickr. Apparently the result of some kind of error in iTunes, the drop-down menu on the iTunes Store "Report a Problem" page disclosed some very revealing strings. They all seem to fall into the "RentalMovie" category (separate from the "Movie" Category that follows it) and include things like"DidNotReceive" and "WrongVersion." I find the "DidNotReceive" one kind of confusing; that would seem more appropriate for something like Netflix or Blockbuster than a download service. In any case, this should definitely add fuel to the iTunes Store movie rental rumors.

[via Digg]