Brandon RichardsonThe information comes from a survey aimed at Netflix users who own an Apple mobile device. According to the survey, the service would be available over Wi-Fi only:
"Whenever you want to instantly watch content on your iPhone, your iPhone must be connected to a Wi-Fi network (such as one you might have at home or at work, or in public places like coffee shops, book stores, hotels, airports, etc.)," the survey reads.
Rumors that Netflix was working on such capability were reported last August, citing "an industry executive familiar with Netflix's plans." The instant streaming app would reportedly require no storage space on the device itself.
This isn't the first time Netflix has asked it's subscribers what they'd be interested in seeing from the service. Surveys were sent out to determine if users wanted streaming via the Sony Playstation 3 a little over 6 months before that service actually came to fruition. If the same timetable pans out for iPhone and iPod touch streaming, the service could be rolled out by the fall.
As Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told Reuters last September, "It's something that's likely to come over time. But nothing in the short term. (With) movie watching, we are not focused on mobile yet, but (instead) on the TV, on Blu-ray and on the video game consoles. We will get to mobile eventually, including the iPhone."
Streaming movies over Wi-Fi is beyond Apple's reach at the moment, as iTunes only lets users download entire movies and take up space on their storage devices, be it AppleTV or mobile devices like the iPhone or iPod touch.
Both Netflix and Amazon have encroached on the Apple TV with their set-top box products built by Roku. Netflix Player was introduced in 2008, just a year after Apple TV was officially announced as a shipping product. Netflix Player incorporates a Web browser plug-in with Microsoft's Silverlight technology.
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22 Comments
You may want to fold my earlier thread into this thread.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=107483
Streaming movies over wi-fi seems kind of lame to me, unless I could temporarily download the movie and have it expire after 24 hours (or something along those lines). The only time I have wi-fi access long enough to watch a movie is when I'm at home, and if I'm at home, I'd rather watch the movie on my TV or computer. The closest I would come to being able to watch a movie over wi-fi is sitting in an airport, but those wi-fi networks are usually not free, and I'm (thankfully) rarely sitting in an airport for 2 hours straight.
But, if I could download the movie before I leave the house and then watch it on the plane and then have it expire after 24 hours (or whatever) -- that would actually be useful.
Where can I actually participate in this survey? I want this on my iPhone. I love me some netflix!
Streaming movies over wi-fi seems kind of lame to me, unless I could temporarily download the movie and have it expire after 24 hours (or something along those lines). The only time I have wi-fi access long enough to watch a movie is when I'm at home, and if I'm at home, I'd rather watch the movie on my TV or computer. The closest I would come to being able to watch a movie over wi-fi is sitting in an airport, but those wi-fi networks are usually not free, and I'm (thankfully) rarely sitting in an airport for 2 hours straight.
But, if I could download the movie before I leave the house and then watch it on the plane and then have it expire after 24 hours (or whatever) -- that would actually be useful.
AGREED.
I would rather have it on the AppleTV.
I wish Apple would create an App Store for the AppleTV.
1) Needing a survey for this is like asking AI trolls if they want to hate on Apple today. The number of iPhone OS users are there and their streaming market is growing very fast with internal projections of when streaming rentals will outdo their mail rentals.
2) WiFi would be nice, but this really needs to be cellular. If Sling Media can stream via 3G hopefully Netflix will be able to as well, though Netflix will surely use a lot more bandwidth than Sling.