As the shift of responsibilities of listing new movies slowly moves from this site to Cinemira, and with the focus being more about content then the box we view these movies on, we thought it was appropriate that a name change was in order. Apple Movie Junkie is the better fit as more and more Apple products, in addition to the Apple TV, can be used to view movies from the iTunes Store. This doesn’t mean we’re forgetting our roots with the Apple TV, it just means that the Apple TV will no longer be our main focus. Ultimately we want to find the movies for you to watch, wether they be on the Apple TV or iTunes, and you all can choose the box to view them on.
Along with the announcement of ATVJ becoming the official blog of Cinemira we’ve revamped our Coming Soon page. The page now lists iTunes pre-order movie titles. We aren’t listing every last pre-order title available in the iTunes Store but more of the well known high profile movies. We think this new revamped pre-order page will be the ultimate companion of Cinemira’s Notification tool so that you know the moment your favorite movie becomes available for purchase or rent.
Lets face it, the movie studios have a stake in what gets promoted on the main landing page of the iTunes Movie Store or on the Apple TV. They’re going to push what they think you should be buying or renting. Don’t get me started on the fact that at least half of the movies that are visibly promoted are only available for purchase and not for rent. Add to this the “viewing window of availability” for new titles, allowing the movie studios to remove movies all together, which can make finding a movie you want to rent or purchase that much more challenging.
Apple TV Junkie has set out to overcome these issues by seeking out and discovering newly available iTunes and Apple TV HD movies, finding hidden iTunes movie gems, and digging up the movies which had once disappeared. The idea for us was to find and push as much of this hidden movie content out of iTunes and onto the web as frequently as possible. It’s obvious that Apple is looking to move the iTunes Music Store experience to “the cloud“, we want to do the same for the iTunes Movie Store. We want to bring the entire iTunes Movie catalog out from behind iTunes and onto the web. The challenge for us at ATVJ is doing all this within a “blog” structure. The flexibility to do all that we want is just not there. This is all about to change.
I guess the word “change” is an understatement when those pages will be removed all together. With Apple ramping up their HD movie additions, and their ever increasing catalog of HD TV shows, we no longer have the man power it takes to keep up with a complete listing of all the content. We’ll still be of course listing all new HD content in the iTunes Store, but I would rather remove those pages then display them incomplete. We hope and expect that some things coming in the near future from ATVJ will more then make up for a few incomplete lists.
Until Apple gets its act together and decides to spend a little time on the Apple TV, or we discover a different way to find new HD rentals for the Apple TV, we won’t be seeing any updates in the near future. Apparently, as you can see from the image above, Apple has decided to not offer any HD rentals for the Apple TV beyond the letter “B” or about 300 titles. This “All HD” list is one of the ways we find the new HD rentals, and until Apple decides to fix this, we are SOL. Sorry for any inconvenience folks.
As most of the visitors to ATVJ know, our goal here is to track all of the HD content available for the Apple TV wether it be Movies or TV, along with tracking some SD content like the daily new additions or $.99 rentals. With the addition of HD rentals through iTunes, we have run into the problem where the HD rental titles available for the Apple TV far outnumber the HD rental titles available from iTunes. Until Apple or the studios brings the HD rentals for both sources into sync, we will do our best to label everything either Apple TV HD or iTunes HD. Hopefully this will keep everything clear for everyone.
Apple Movie Junkie, formerly Apple TV Junkie, is the official blog of Cinemira. We provide a helpful service for users of the iTunes Movie Store and the Apple TV. AMJ was born out of a surprising shortcoming on the Apple TV after noticing that there was no easy way to find a list of all new HD & SD rental titles released on a daily basis. AMJ fills that niche with a daily list of new movies.
