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Apple expected to launch iTunes Replay soon

Apple is expected to step up the features and user friendliness of iTunes with some capabilities that users have been asking for since the iTunes store debuted.
Written by Rachel King, Contributor

Apple will soon launch a "full-fledged re-downloading and possibly streaming service named iTunes Replay," according to a report from AppDevice.

This service mainly applies to TV shows and movies bought via iTunes as most (if not all of them at this point) can be re-downloaded after purchase.

AppDevice reports:

As Apple secures the remaining rights, TV Shows as well as Movies in iTunes will be given little arrow indicating whether they’re “iTunes Replay eligible”, that is, available to be downloaded subsequent times. Note that some content will unfortunately only be available to download five times and we don’t know how streaming will count towards that limit.

Much like how a lot of content bought on iTunes in the past has only be available to download to five devices maximum, it is likely that iTunes Replay will only permit a particular song, TV episode or movie to be downloaded five times in general.

Details about the streaming aspect are less clear. This is a wild guess, but perhaps users will be able to watch the content they've purchased from any computer so long as it stored on Apple's servers and not downloaded to a computer or mobile device, much like Netflix and Hulu Plus.

However, it's debatable whether or not the term "iTunes Replay" will the official and final name for this product, as AppDevice acknowledges that it is the internal working name. Perhaps it will just be reworked into a new update to iTunes and/or with the public launch of iCloud.

However, the moniker still sounds catchy enough. Unfortunately, a release date hasn't been revealed for this project -- Apple hasn't even confirmed its existence publicly yet.

But if it is legit, then we will likely see it roll out, perhaps quietly, behind the shadows of iCloud and iOS 5 this fall.

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