The rumor has been circulating since “Instant Watching” and the iPhone coexisted.
Finally there may be a slimmer of truth to this rumor! Reports have come out that Netflix has begun surveying its customers to determine whether or not they would use an iPhone app to watch streaming content if it were offered for free. This is the same survey that was distributed to customers before Netflix’s release for Wii.
Offered FREE! Who wouldn’t use that if they had the option?
The real question is: How much would you pay for something like that?
- A one-time purchase of the application from the App store?
- This would be similar to the $30 price tag on the Slingbox app.
- An extra charge on your Netflix Subscription fee?
- Would you be willing to pay an extra $2, $3, $5 / month for this feature?
AT&T would most likely not allow the service to use the 3G network and would force this to be a Wi-Fi only app however other applications have made strides in securing 3G rights. The massive amount of bandwidth necessary to produce a quality image for a full length movie would greatly surpass what it takes for small YouTube clips and streaming music via Pandora so I’m sure that a 3G movie would be poor quality anyway. When you’re on the go though, you may still prefer poor quality to nothing.
The other major issue is what content is going to be made available. They already offer instant watching material over the internet, XBox360, PS3, and Wii however the content differs between computer and gaming console. The content would most likely be limited on the iPhone as well. I certainly don’t know how their licensing for content works but I certainly hope this is something they can move forward with.
The iPad seems to be what is creating most of the hype behind the renewed rumors. Almost all apps will be supported on the iPad that are currently available for the iPhone. The iPad would be a TERRIFIC video streaming device and especially great if there were a Netflix app as the darn iPad doesn’t support Flash in web browsers!
I’m all for it!
- Would I use it for free? Hell yeah!
- Would I pay an extra $1 / month? You betcha
- Would I pay a one time fee of say $20 for an app that would let me do it as much as I want (def. if it were 3G enabled).
All we can do is sit back, keeping the rumor mill turning, and hope it truly becomes a reality!
But who cares if the picture quality is HD. Most will be watching it on a screen that won’t give them the best of the best quality anyway. Will it make that much of a difference whether it’s 3G v. WIFI?
I’m certainly not expecting HD (even over WiFi), but wouldn’t it be nice?
The problem is that for a quality image to be displayed without constantly starting and stopping the stream a large buffer would be necessary. I’m not sure how much buffer space can be allotted on the iPhone itself for this buffer.
We have all seen some really crappy quality videos on YouTube before. Most of the time if there is a small video and you “make full-screen” the quality plummets. Imagine that nasty crap image on an already small screen. This is what MAY be in store if they cannot buffer properly.
Currently with Netflix for XBox 360 the data is buffered before play where on the PC playing starts before the buffer has completed. The result on the PC for faster start time is that the quality is degraded at the first minute or so.
I would imagine they plan to hash out all the details regarding streaming ahead of time but I just envision poor quality over 3G if AT&T chooses to allow any streaming in the first place. The decision is certainly not up to Netflix, it is all on AT&T to decide if they want to give up the bandwidth in the first place.