Movie Rentals Hit Android Over The Cloud (And Offline)

Today at their Google I/O conference in San Francisco, Google had plenty to unveil for Android. One thing that consumers should really love is a new movie rentals option for Android devices. Notably, this will work over the cloud to all of your Android devices, just like Google Books syncing.

You can try this all out at market.android.com — there’s a new Movies tab. And it will be available on Android tablets with an app starting with Android 3.1, which is rolling out today to Xoom users. And it will be available on phones with Android 2.2 or later starting in a couple weeks.

The latter two are important as this will be the key to take movies on the go where there is no connectivity. You can “pin” a movie while you’re streaming it to shift it over to your mobile device app.

The rentals will be similar to other movie services in that you’ll have 30 days to watch them once you rent them. And once you start playing them, you’ll have 24 hours to complete them. There will be “thousands” of titles (including new films) and prices will start at $1.99.