Here comes another movie format that Apple isn’t touching

Everyone in Hollywood is apparently gathering behind a new digital movie format called UltraViolet.

Everyone except Apple and Disney, that is. Will the two companies under Steve Jobs’ influence sign on?

Here’s Fox executive Danny Kaye, speaking with Pocket-Lint’s Rik Henderson:

“All but one [of the major studios] have signed on… And that doesn’t mean that they won’t,” he said, hinting that Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment will ultimately offer UV versions of its catalogue.

How about Apple though, so far the Cupertino company has resisted the allure of Ultraviolet in favour, presumably, of its own cloud video plans? “That also doesn’t mean they won’t,” said Kaye. “From my perspective, when you’re well established you sometimes take a ‘wait and see’.”

Sure, Apple’s lack of participation so far doesn’t absolutely mean it won’t support UltraViolet someday. Apple works with other companies on tech standards all the time.

But just because everyone else is using one technology doesn’t mean Apple will. For example, its “wait and see” approach to Blu-ray is still in “waiting” mode after all these years, and it hasn’t hurt. And Apple hasn’t budged on its stance to keep Adobe Flash off the iPad and iPhone, even though a bunch of competing devices support it.

So far, there’s no indication that UltraViolet is something Apple needs to support — Apple seems pretty happy with its own iTunes movie sales, licensing, and DRM systems. So maybe it will, maybe it won’t.