Netflix Gauging Interest In an iPhone App

gollum123 writes "A new survey sent out to Netflix subscribers indicates that the iPhone might be the next device that its streaming service rolls out on in the coming months. (The NY Times credits Hacking Netflix for the tip.) According to a tip sent to Hacking Netflix, the subscription video company is now asking users how likely they would be to use an iPhone app to view movies via its online streaming service. According to the survey, an iPhone app would give users all the same functionality that they have when streaming on a PC or other device, including all the same movies and TV shows without advertisements or trailers. If the app is rolled out, the ability to watch on the Apple mobile device would be offered at no additional charge to existing Netflix subscribers. There is good news for AT&T implied in the survey questions: it appears that the app would require users to be connected to a Wi-Fi network."

iPad?

[painandgreed]

Screw the iPhone. This would actually make me want an iPad (and was actually the killer app I was expecting to be previewed when the iPad was demonstrated).

Doubt it would be approved

[Kitkoan]

Wouldn't this be similar to 'offering a function alreday available' a la iTunes movie rentals? While it would stream where the iTunes won't, it still will directly compete against Apple's iTune movie rentals.

Re:Gauge it out!

[MillionthMonkey]

I hope they have first gaged the interest

AT&T has already gagged my interest after dropping all the calls I made from home or work. BTW I live 3 miles NE of Apple's headquarters and worked 2 miles SW of it. And I have been to Apple's headquarters; there is no AT&T reception at all.

No Silverlight!

[Verdatum]

I should hope that an iPhone app would mean that the streaming would not take place over silverlight. If that's true, there's a much better chance that an app that emulates the protocol can be written for things like Linux (Including Maemo) and Android. If they could just bring back streaming over Flash (or add streaming over HTML 5), then it would be much more trivial to grant support for all these other platforms.

Ah well, I dream with fingers crossed.

Re:iPad?

[Joe Tie.]

I'd still need hulu in addition to netflix. Then add in orb for local files, and I think it'd be an ok media device once it was jailbroken to allow for backgrounding. Still, all in all if I was going for something like that I'd really just rather go with an android based device.

Re:No Silverlight!

[Karlt1]

I think that's safe to assume. Apple won't let Flash on the device and I really can't see them allowing Silverlight.

They don't have to. Silverlight can stream a regular old H.264 video and use HTML 5 when targetting the iPhone:

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/11/28/microsoft-brings-silverlight-video-to-the-iphone-without-a-plug/ [downloadsquad.com]