Direct video downloads heading to iPhone, iPod touch?

According to a report on Open Salon, Apple appears to be preparing direct movie and TV downloads on the iPhone.

Open Salon claims that an ad appearing in the free version of the app Twitterfon is the first place this new iPhone feature was discovered. But the ad in question is nowhere to be found at press time and hasn't been confirmed.

According to the report, the ad (pictured above) supposedly led to a place that pointed to some movie and TV show listings (shown below, together with an abortive attempt to download the movie The Wrestler). The listings were broken down by genre, and, although titles were listed, none would work when accessed.

This story took an interesting turn last Friday when AppleInsider reported in  a post entitled Apple briefs staff on wireless iPhone movie and TV downloads that the ability to download video-based media directly from your iPhone or iPod touch via Wi-Fi and 3G might really be coming.

That story adds some weight to the Open Salon rumour, stating: "AppleInsider has learned from people familiar with Apple's training programme that new self-guided training materials being distributed to familiarise AppleCare agents with the features of iPhone 3.0 software 'definitely covered' the ability to directly download movies and TV shows on the device itself, rather than just syncing video content through iTunes."

Considering all this information -- and that US carrier AT&T says it has been working diligently to deliver a better and faster-performing 3G network -- it seems feasible that Apple and AT&T may have worked out issues surrounding direct video downloads, just as they did previously with music downloads.

Still, the rumours don't quite square with AT&T's refusal to allow SlingPlayer to work on its 3G network, supposedly because of the bandwidth the player would require.