Netflix’s fantastic streaming movie service is coming to the iPhone and iPod Touch, according to a report in the trade mag Multichannel News.
Citing “an industry executive familiar with Netflix’s plans,” the trade mag says Netflix’s Watch Instantly service is headed to the iPhone, iPod Touch and the Nintendo Wii. However, because of bandwidth concerns, it will likely be available only over WiFi and not AT&T’s 3G network, MN says.
Either way, it’s great news.
I’m a subscriber and a big fan of Netflix’s service, which I find to be easier, more convenient and much, much cheaper than Apple’s iTunes. For about $20 a month, we get to stream a wide a wide variety of TV shows and movies from Netflix instead of paying a la carte for rentals or purchases from iTunes.
Indeed, Netflix’s Watch Instantly is the strongest of the online on-demand video services — the gold standard for content on demand.
The selection isn’t comprehensive, but I find it to be pretty good. There’s not the latest releases, but there’s a pretty deep and wide library of great movies, which is more than can be said for iTunes, which I find unbearably popcorn and shallow.
In addition, Netflix movies stream quickly, the quality is great, even on a big 42-inch HDTV, and we’ve never, ever encountered a problem — a rare and astonishing testament to the company’s technology. (We use the service through a Samsung Blu-Ray player which streams Netflix and Pandora).
The service is already available on a wide range of devices from Windows PCs and Macs, to the Xbox 360, TiVo and several Blu-Ray DVD players with support for streaming downloads.
