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Are you guys ready for an iTunes TV subscription?  For $30 a month I sure as heck am!  This would be a Netflix style on demand service that lets you access all the TV shows by participating networks.  This is great for people who live and die by their DVR because you could simply download to iTunes and go.  Or you could also sync it to your iDevice if that’s how you roll. This is all well and good and it could be a great service if enough networks sign on.  However, there are 2 big caveats that need to be addressed first before I sign on the dotted line.  First, why do I have to wait until tomorrow to watch my shows?  If Glee and Grey’s Anatomy come on at 9 why do I have to wait until the next afternoon to watch it?  I would like to see this addressed in the form of advance releases to iTunes and make them available either at the start time of the show on TV or at the end of the airing.

The other thing I would like to see addressed is the issue of live TV.  Sure, iTunes is great for getting your shows after the fact but if I’m going to shell out $30 per month to Apple for a TV service, I would like to see some kind of live stream of the network. The reason I say this is because not everybody watches TV via their DVR or iTunes like many of us do.  There are also times where a DVR just doesn’t cut it such as live sporting events.  I can’t buy that NFL game in the iTunes store to watch it later simply because I’ll already know who won and that ruins the whole point of the game.  This is the main reason we still keep cable in our house is because of live sports events such as the NFL.  If I can get my NFL and MLB fixes via iTunes and Apple TV for $30 per month or the same thing from Mediacom (my local cable provider) for over 2x that, the choice is a no brainer.

That brings us to the Apple TV.  The AllThingsD article says that this service would not be tied to just the Apple TV but the iTunes ecosystem as a whole.  Yes, a lot of people will watch a lot of TV on their computers, iPhones, and iPods.  But Apple will really need to make the Apple TV into something more than just a hobby for them.  Any kind of Apple TV subscription service will need to sync “now playing” information across all your iDevices so if you start a show on your Apple TV, you can pick up where you left off on your iPhone.  There was a patent for something just like this from Apple that surfaced not too long ago so we know that the boys in Cupertino are one step ahead of me.  This kind of tight integration will be key for Apple to get just right where it “just works” as everything else Apple does.