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Apple Set The Bar Low For iTunes Movie Rentals, But Still Isn't Clearing It

When Apple launched iTunes movie rentals in January, it said it would have 1,000 movies available for rent by the end of February. That's not an impressive number -- Netflix offers 90 times as many. And Apple is falling far short of even that modest goal, according to Macworld.

Macworld writes that it counts just 604 rentals available on iTunes:

When asked about the delay in movie rentals, Steve Jobs placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the movie companies, suggesting that deals over rights were taking longer than anyone anticipated. Now that the Hollywood writers strike is over and the entertainment moguls have nothing to distract them other than the small matter of negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild, perhaps they can take iTunes movie rentals off the back burner and onto our computers, iPods, iPhones, and Apple TVs.

I remember sitting in the audience at the Macworld keynote in January when Steve Jobs announced there'd be a thousand movie rentals, and thinking it was a very Austin Powers moment. You remember: Dr. Evil is threatening to destroy the world unless he's paid one million dollars. And even his own henchman isn't impressed, because Dr. Evil has been in suspended animation since the '60s and doesn't realize a million dollars isn't that much money anymore.

Similarly, 1,000 movies isn't a lot -- Netflix offers 90,000.

P.S. InformationWeek has mentioned Austin Powers twice before in its 13-year history on the Web. I thought you'd want to know.

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