At every Steve Jobs keynote, you'll hear the Apple CEO talk about the company's successes -- nearly 20 percent market share for the iPhone after the first quarter, 4 billion iTunes songs sold to date, and so on.

 

But at Tuesday's keynote, he did something kind of un-Steve-like: He admitted disappointment. Since movies were added to the iTunes Store, 7 million have been sold. "But that did not meet our expectations, I have to tell you," Steve intoned.

 

And the reason? Apple feels it hinges on the model: People want to buy songs and listen to them over and over. But movies are different -- many are happy to watch a movie just once, so they prefer to rent.

 

Enter movies on iTunes. Starting today, films from all 12 major studios (Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, Lions Gate, New Line Cinema, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Walt Disney Company, Paramount, Universal, and Sony) will be available to rent on iTunes, starting 30 days after their release on DVD. You can watch them on your Mac, on a PC, or send them over to your current-generation iPod (no 5G video iPods, it seems) or iPhone for viewing on the go.

 

 

Library titles are $2.99 and new releases are $3.99. If an HD version of the movie is available, you can rent it for $1 more. (Steve showed a great-looking HD clip from Live Free or Die Hard, featuring everyone's favorite anthropomorphized Mac, Justin Long.) You have 30 days to begin watching each rental, and once you start it you have 24 hours to finish up.

 

"But what about this flat-screen TV?" Steve continued, gesturing to the giant widescreen behind him. "I'd like to watch it there too."

 

 

Enter the second generation of the Apple TV -- no computer required. The hardware is about the same, but it can connect directly to the Internet, and you can download rental movies from iTunes right from your couch. It starts downloading immediately, and prompts you when you can start viewing -- it looked like the playback starts at around the 10 percent downloaded mark.

 

 

But that's not all the Apple TV's Internet connection can do. You can also view movies and photos posted to people's .Mac Web Galleries. You can see photos posted to Flickr, and even browse photos left by your Flickr friends. (We can't wait to stream photos of our drunk friends in a continuous loop during the next podcast.) It's got 50 million YouTube vidoes to stream. You can download HD podcasts, too, and browse and search all your content with the newly redesigned interface.

 

 

What's better, current Apple TV owners aren't left out of the party. The software update will add all this functionality, and you can expect it in about two weeks. The new Apple TV hardware ships in two weeks, too, and it's got a new lower price: $229 for 40GB and $329 for 80GB. Those are both $70 cheaper than the previous version.

 

The CEO of 20th Century Fox, Jim Gianopulos, also appeared to reveal that new 20th Century Fox DVDs, starting today with the release of Family Guy: Blue Harvest, will include a digital version viewable on your iPod.

 

So Apple is looking to serve you content across all your devices, from your iPod to your Mac, and to your living room TV. Now to find a pre-Super Bowl sale on a fresh new widescreen...

 

 

To download this video to add to iTunes for viewing on an iPod with video, right click here and choose, Save link as.../Download linked file, depending on which flavor of browser you are using.

 

 

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