iTunes Movies Disappoint Older Video iPod Owners

After MacWorld two weeks ago, we brought you a blog post describing how iTunes movies could be an important and popular new technology. Today the product is getting headlines, but not for the right reasons.

Evidently, the new service is incompatible with most existing video iPods. Even those purchased as recently as five months ago, won't work.

It turns out that fifth-generation video iPods purchased as recently as five months ago won’t play those iTunes movie rentals — and not because of any hardware deficiency. Current generation iPods, per the footnote in Apple’s press release here, include only the “iPod classic, iPod nano with video and iPod touch.”

That's got to be frustrating. It's even more frustrating because consumers have been conditioned that most new technology will work with old technology. The concept is called "backwards compatibility" and technology manufacturers, especially those in the computer industry have strived to maintain it.

We're investigating whether our video converter CinemaForge will address this issue. It may be an upcoming product enhancement if we can get it to work. Either way, we'll let you know.