Warner packages movies as iOS apps, starting with The Dark Knight and Inception

Online rentals and purchases of movies are still just a tiny fraction of the home video pie, but Warner's latest effort to expand that is similar to Paramount's recent efforts on Windows Phone 7 (ThanksSteveyAyo), offering its highest profile flicks as apps for iPhones and iPads. The Dark Knight andInception are the first two releases out of the gate, offering free apps with some bonus content and the first five minutes of the movie, then charging $9.99 and $11.99, respectively to unlock the rest. According to Warner, it offers a different experience than simply purchasing the flick over iTunes because of the extras which include Twitter and Facebook integration among the extras, plus the ability to offer the digital version in countries where iTunes doesn't sell movies yet, like China, Brazil and the Netherlands. There's a video demo and press release after the break, but the downside of being locked to portable devices is keeping us from clicking the buy button for now, but if you could sprinkle someUltraviolet on it, we might change our tune.

[Technorati Tags: Technorati, iOS, movies, apps]