A while ago I wrote about the similarity between iPad magazine apps and their newspaper counterparts with the CD-ROMs | CD-i of yesteryear. The announcement by Warner Bros that they were going to distribute two of their films as a magazine app with built in video player got me thinking.
Firstly, like 3D, I suspect this is a way of wrapping the film up in such a way that it is more difficult to pirate. But there were also other aspects of this that were of interest:
It was almost as if the movie executives had taken a look at the prognostications about the future of books and decided we’ll have some of that thank you very much. To be honest with you, it fit them a bit better than book publishers. That is mainly because the production seems to be very similar to DVD and Blu-Ray menu-ing systems.
The second aspect I found quite interesting was why Warner Bros. may want to move away from selling films in iTunes to selling apps instead. Is there are margin play involved? Or is it a second chance to better align its prices with what consumers are willing to pay?
I am not convinced that the iPad is a viable primary movie screen, especially when so many people can have a superior experience at home in their own sitting room, but I think that Warner Bros did the right thing in trying to make watching a film a more shareable experience on social media.