Reports are circulating that the next version of Apple’s iPhone operating system, 3.0, will allow the handset to directly download movies and television programs, rather than users first downloading them to iTunes on their computer and then transferring the videos to the phone, AppleInsider says.
This isn’t a huge change, as the article notes, because iPhone users can already directly download free video podcasts and YouTube videos via the handset’s mobile iTunes application. “It would, however, cement Apple's lead in delivering paid content to mobile users,” AppleInsider says.
Assuming this capability is enabled, it’s not known whether the downloads will be allowed via 3G or just via Wi-Fi. When music downloads were enabled directly to the iPhone, they were first allowed only via WiFi, but later also allowed via 3G.
Logical and inevitable
As AppleInsider says — and it seems logical to me — videos require much greater bandwidth than music, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if Apple permitted these new movie and TV downloads via Wi-Fi only, at least initially.
But it’s one more step in what I know is the inevitability of consumers being able to obtain movies, TV and other videos via multiple wireless protocols.
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