Netflix polling customers on iPhone OS streaming


Call it enviable: Someday Netflix will be streaming to an iPhone OS device. The hottest TV/movie streaming service is bound to intersect with the hottest handheld devices, whether it be an iPhone/iPod Touch and/or iPad. You can list this up with such rumors as the eventual release of Mac OS X 10.7. It's going to happen, just when.

The Netflix insider site Hacking Netflix is reporting some Netflix customers are being polled for interest in streaming their Netflix service with the iPhone. The service proposes a scenario of instant watch for TV and movies with no commercial and trailers, only 30 seconds away. Well, since you put it that way...

As proposed, the service would only work over WiFi.

If history is a guide, we saw something similar prior to streaming brought to the PS3 and Wii. Netflix polled their customers to gauge interest, however, that may have been geared more towards deciding which platform goes first.

Before we get too exciting there may be some technical issues to address, which may delay such an app. For one, the current TV streams are too large for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Netflix would have to re-encode video for mobile. It should do this eventually anyway, so it may be a matter of when it wants to take on that task. The second issue is Netflix uses Microsoft Silverlight player, and this is yet to be working on the iPhone OS. It should be noted, however, Microsoft was demoing it last fall.

Frankly watching on the iPhone would be nice, but watching Netflix on the iPad would be killer.

Netflix Survey Hints at iPhone Streaming App (Wi-Fi)