Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs confirmed the tech giant’s foray into online movie rentals Tuesday, revealing an alliance with all six major movie studios to offer first-run films by high-speed World Wide Web connections.

The announcement during the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco capped months of speculation that an Apple movie-rental service was in the offing. The service launched Tuesday in the United States and will roll out internationally later that year.

The Cupertino-based company will have more than 1,000 movies for online rental through iTunes by the end of February, with prices of $2.99 for older movies and $3.99 for new releases. Users can watch instantly by a broadband World Wide Web connection, or download and keep the movie for 30 days while having 24 hours to finish the movie once it’s started.

Apple is partnering

with 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney, Paramount, Universal and Sony.

Jobs additionally unveiled a string of new features for the iPhone, showing how users of the combination iPod-cell phone-Internet surfing device can now pinpoint their location on Web maps, text-message multiple folks at once and customize their home screens.

Jobs plus said Apple has sold 4 million iPhones during their first 200 days on sale.

A packed auditorium cooed and applauded when Jobs demonstrated mapping upgrades to the iPhone. Other features rolling out Tuesday included the ability to switch around icons on the iPhones home screen. Users additionally can create up to nine home screens.

Jobs plus unveiled new software for the iPod Touch music player. New models will be able to process e-mail and perform new mapping functions.

Orginal post by Top Tech News