Netflix coming to Android next year

By on Nov 13, 2010 at 2:32 PM
mobile November 13, 2010

The ever-popular streaming movie service is coming to Android. In a post on the company’s official blog, Netflix announced that they will start to appear on “select Android devices” in early 2011. The reason why Netflix for Android won’t immediately be available on every Android handset is due to a “lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism for Android.” There seems to be a DRM issue with making Netflix’s content providers happy, and apparently on Android it’s on a device-by-device basis. We’re sure it will all get worked out, however, seeing that almost every other mobile platform and gaming system now supports Netflix.

[Via AndroidCentral]

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46 Comments

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  • Mgl323

    My guess is only Android devices with 2.2+ are getting netflix.

  • Anonymous

    @mgl323….my guess is that it will be 2.3+ maybe they want to see Google put a little more security before they will produce this app.

    • Mgl323

      If that’s the case then only a handful of Android phones will get netflix. Such as the Nexus one, G2, and Nexus S??

      • Anonymous

        Yes I know…..I wouldn’t be surprised if they were to do that tho. Phone manufacturers would love to have this happen because that would make people want to buy a new phone.

    • Anonymous

      2.3 has nothing to do with this. DRM is on Galaxy S phones already. They will work directly with the OEM’s to bake DRM into their phones. MediaHub=DRM protected content. Stock Android phones need not apply.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/PACMan3000/ Paul A. Chapel

    Netflix actually used that dreaded word that Fandroids hate to hear: fragmentation!

    “Although we don’t have a common platform security mechanism and DRM, we are able to work with individual handset manufacturers to add content protection to their devices. Unfortunately, this is a much slower approach and leads to a fragmented experience on Android, in which some handsets will have access to Netflix and others won’t. This clearly is not the preferred solution, and we regret the confusion it might create for consumers. However, we believe that providing the service for some Android device owners is better than denying it to everyone.”

    Oh, no, don’t go bonkers, guys.

    • Anonymous

      I wonder why Netflix’s people chose the word fragmentation. The requirements for running Netflix’s app would be a value adding OPTION. Options are not fragmenting. Options are diversifying.

    • Anonymous

      Wait.. how many versions of iOS is there floating around? And how many features of the newest iOS are crippled in earlier model iPhones? Fragmentation runs rampid more than android.

      • Ernie

        You’re joking right? There’s crap being released left and right from 100 different manufacturers with their own version of Android skin and all kinds of versions of the os from 1.6 and up. I like a good discussion but not when someone has his head so up his ass than a good discussion is impossible.

      • Anonymous

        Im being quite serious. I wasn’t disagreeing with you on fact that “with google” phones carrier fragmentation. I was just stating it runs on iOS too, where that is clearly apples fault. GOOGLES fragmentation lies on carriers and device manufactures. Its apparent which the fanboy here is. Notice when google released froyo, they released it once. Apple has how many literations of 4.0 out? Their first releases crippled my daughters iPhone. Luckily she’s 4 so she didn’t notice it. (Wifi connection here, before we get canny)

        Apple makes a smooth and easy OS (on newest systems) Google 2.1 still supported 2yr old devices and did not cripple functionality. Lets get it straight here. You can’t have a discussion because you refuse to see truth.

  • Anonymous

    My guess is that watching an entire movie on a small phone screen is not my idea of a movie watching experirlence. Certainly not worth paying. Not to mention that no battery will last that long. If you are going to be tethered to the wall, might as well tether to your computer. Netflix can keep their crap.

    • Anonymous

      Sour grapes my friend.. Netflix rocks if u got it.

      • Anonymous

        Not sour grapes. I have seen netflix on iphone. Freezes up. I have an EVO, so I have full flash. Don’t need full movies. TV shows play great. Movies are just too long, for reasons already stated.

      • Anonymous

        Never freezes on mine…

    • wanderer

      I don’t watch entire movies on the Iphone4, its merely a time killer for me and I resume the movie on my ipad, PC or Xbox when I get home. I have had netflix for years now and just the basic one movie at a time price with streaming included, there is no fee watching it on other devices as well. Well worth it for me and a lot of folks.

  • wanderer

    Whoa, you mean Netflix isn’t on Android yet? What da….! I’ve been watching great Netflix movies on the iphone for a long time now and yes it rocks! I use reading glasses, but not for watching Netflix on the iphone, its clear as day.

    • Anonymous

      For a time killer, I have Sprint TV and full flash player, which let’s me watch tv shows and videos galore. I just am not going to be watching a full movie on my phone. Wait, you mean iphones don’t get flash? Daddy jobs said no. At leasr you have crappy skyfire, that will give you crappy converted flash. The real thing is great. Before you say you don’t need flash and that it sucks, I will just call sour grapes. Works great, with no issues on my EVO 4G.

  • Anonymous

    Whoa! You mean iphones can’t tether for free and watch it on a computer monitor? Android has been doing that from day 1.

  • Anonymous

    I’m going to sum up my feelings/views on the comments made on this thread with 6 quick points

    1. If I want to watch movies while on the go I’ll buy a netbook or better yet a nice sized tablet. If someone else wants to watch a movie on a 3.5 – 4.3 inch screen then more power to then. I’ve been there done that its not for me. It’s a matter of a persons individual choice. Nobodies wrong and nobodies right it just boils down to what each individual person prefers. End of discussion.

    2. Android has 135536474 different GUI interfaces (skins), 64748447 different handsets, with 647535798589 different sized screens with 747758758487 different screen resolutions. That adds up to a fragmented platform. People can scream all they want that its not fragmented at the end of the day anyone with a brain and eyes knows its fragmented.

    3. When the vast majority of the tech sites who tested flash on handsets say it runs like crap and all the people I know who use flash on their handsets say its crap THEN ITS CRAP. I don’t care who comes on here and says it runs fine on their handsets. I’ve seen it run on enough different handsets to know the truth. FLASH IS CRAP AND DESERVES TO DIE. It has nothing to do with Jobs, it has nothing to do with Apple, my final judgment comes from personal observation and experience.

    4.If you choose to use flash on your handset its going to kill battery life. There’s no maybes or ifs involved when debating flash on mobile battery life. Its a 100% proven fact and anyone who comes on here saying their phones battery isn’t effected by flash is a liar. End of discussion.

    5. Much like the above blogger Ernie I also like a good discussion as much as anyone else on here but when people twist the obvious facts just because they like iOS or Android or WP7 or insert company name here they only serve to make themselves look like jackasses.

    6. Its a huge wonderful world out there ladies and gentlemen and there’s more to life then a silly plastic phone. STOP DRINKING THE INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE COOL AID and go experience life.

    Have a nice day/night peace out m/

    • Anonymous

      ditto

    • Anonymous

      Interesting that you tell everybody else to get a life, yet you’re here on a Sat night/Sun morning writing a novel spewing bs like no other. Flash does not suck. I use it daily, and never have issues. Doesn’t even buffer. Does it use battery? Of course it does. But, it doesn’t drain like you may think. I can watch or listen tv for 2 hrs, and it drains about 25-35%. I’m ok with that. It’s worth it to me. At least I have the choice to use it. If you use the phone as a computer, or tv over a data network, the battery will drain quicker. That’s the price we pay for wanting such a small device to do so much. As far as fragmentation: yes, it exists. But, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. It only affects a handfull of app developers that are lazy. They expect to code the app once, and then make a killing. The people that buy the low end android phones that won’t get upgraded far, if at all…don’t care or know anything about fragmentation. Android phones are the most capable phones on the market. The people that care about having the latest and greatest software and hardware, will buy devices that can keep up. You can’t cater to everyone, without fragmentation. People buying low to mid range android phones would not spend $200+. So yes, Android is fragmented, that’s how it has been able to grow so fast. Soon, it will be top dog err robot : )

      • Anonymous

        Ok tim242 lets rock

        QUOTE:Flash does not suck. I use it daily, and never have issues

        Yeah yeah sure sure read it a thousand times before whatever floats your boat.

        QUOTE:Interesting that you tell everybody else to get a life, yet you’re here on a Sat night/Sun morning writing a novel spewing bs like no other.

        Well its really none of your business but if you really want an answer here it is. I’m working whats known as the graveyard shift. Yes believe it or not there are people who work through the night and weekend at their jobs. When I first posted I was on my lunch break and being bored I came on here and killed some time stating my views. That is the idea behind a comments thread. Right now I’m on my last coffee break. As for the part about me spewing bs PROVE IT. Lets see some hard facts that what I’ve stated about flash is bs.

        There are by far better tools for viewing content then flash. What Adobe has to do is go straight back to coding and fix their crappy mobile suite. I’ve used flash on a PC and a Mac and I can honestly say it sucks. Adobe has sat back on its laurels putting out second rate code for years because they’re the only game in town. I’m far from a lover of Steve Jobs but when he had the guts to say flash sucks and it wouldn’t be included on the Apple mobile platform the only reaction I had was: “Right on someone finally said it and is openly challenging Adobe. Maybe now Adobe will get off its fat wallet and actually put out a mobile suite that works.”

        On a Mac when flash doesn’t cause Safari to crash it causes the browser to crawl like a 90 year old woman. On Firefox for Mac its no better. When using flash on a Windows machine although flash may be a little less buggy the experience is still no better. My system slows down, my fans kick in and it sound like a freight train is screaming through the room. Whether its my tower or laptop they both become overly hot. The whole system slows down to the point that any multitasking either has to be stopped or the flash plugin has to be shut down.

        As for the mobile version of flash its no better. I’ve seen it run on a Xperia X10, a Captivate, 2 Droids, HTC Hero and a Evo. The browsers slowed down pinch and zoom became buggy and full of lag and a couple of times both the Captivate and one Droid locked up and the browser became unresponsive and crashed. A few other times while browsing various flash enabled video sites you would tap to watch a video and nothing would happen. Close the browser go back to the same site and suddenly it would work. Go to another site it would suddenly lock up. Close the browser go to a previously viewed site and suddenly the movie which played fine 3 minutes ago now won’t work. Whats so great about that kind of user experience? Everyone I know who has flash on their handsets hates it. Even the resident fandroid at my work makes complains about how laggy his browser gets when running flash.

        QUOTE: As far as fragmentation: yes, it exists. But, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. It only affects a handfull of app developers that are lazy. They expect to code the app once, and then make a killing. The people that buy the low end android phones that won’t get upgraded far, if at all…don’t care or know anything about fragmentation. Android phones are the most capable phones on the market. The people that care about having the latest and greatest software and hardware, will buy devices that can keep up. You can’t cater to everyone, without fragmentation

        You’ve completely missed the point. Look around various threads and see what some people have to say about fragmentation. As far as they’re concerned it doesn’t exist. Then they start yammering about Apple when nobody even mentioned Apple to begin with. This isn’t a holy war and throwing out false facts isn’t going to gain you sainthood in the church of Google. Schmidt, Jobs, and Ballmer don’t give two hoots what Joe/Jane Blow says to push their platform. They’re only concerned about what the bottom line adds up to at the end of the fiscal quarter. People should just grow up use whatever platform they wish and stop acting like this is some tech crusade.

        QUOTE:At least I have the choice to use it.
        Yeah so? Why should I care what you choose to use? Matter of fact why should anyone care? If you like the choice you made with your handset more power to you. That’s the point of my post.

        Now if you will excuse me my coffee break is almost over and I have to run. Pardon any bad grammar or typos I had limited time to quickly write this.

        P.S.
        Before anyone asks yes I can thumb type pretty fast on a touch capacitive screen.

      • Anonymous

        Most every phone you claim to have seen flash running on, is not capable of running it. See, Adobe Flash 10.1 (full flash) requires Froyo. Only two of those phones you mentioned runs froyo. The droid only has a 550 MH processor. Which brings me to my next point. Processors make a big difference. The EVO runs flash just fine. There is a reason that flash is only officially available for certain phones! The key is to set flash to on demand only. Because, if you let every piece of flash on a page load, yes…that is going to slow it down. Once you click the box in which you want the flash to load, it loads, you watch it. Works fine. People want flash. That’s a fact. Why do you think Skyfire instantly became the most downloaded and highest grossing app ever, in apple’s app store? FLASH, my friend. It may be a converted format that isn’t as good as the real thing, but people want it. I find it interesting that you didn’t deny that fragmentation is part of the reason google is kicking ass. Say what you will, but it is what it is.

  • AndroidHater

    next year???????????? hahahahahahahahahahahahahha Android is a horrible os!!!!

    • Anonymous

      Android is horrible because a lazy dev is taking their time to develop a Netflix app? Your stupidity shines. Android had MANY features before iphone. It has some that iphone will never have. Android is kicking ass. Don’t be mad, don’t be jealous

    • You so dumb

      You do realize that next year is 1 and a half months from now right? Not really a long time…

  • http://twitter.com/kirkewilliams kirkewilliams

    That’s cool. Android is finally catching up to the iPhone.

    • Anonymous

      Apps are not all an OS is judged by. Android came with more features out of the box 2 yrs ago, than iphone has now. Iphone just got a few of those recently. So, I might would say that iphone is finally catching up with Android. But, not quite.

  • Donny

    Great! Another android app that can force close all the time and not update for the phone I have after the manufacturer/carrier decide to not update the OS after 6 months….

    • Anonymous

      Either you bought old, non capable hardware, or a Samsung. If you want fast updates, you have to know what to buy.

      • Anonymous

        Considering Android is so fragmented knowing what to buy is like trying to figure out where to step in a minefield.

      • Anonymous

        Ahhh, you are assuming people are too stupid to make a decision on what phone to buy. News flash: There have alwaya been a bunch of phones, running different os’s, with different shapes and sizes, for people to choose from. That has nothing to do with Android fragmentation. Your “point” is moot. Obviously, people are doing just fine, or else Android wouldn’t be kicking ass. Now, get a life.

  • Anonymous

    has anyone else posted a comment and had needs to be approved by moderator message?

    • Anonymous

      Maybe they are testing a bs filter on you…

  • keymaker

    This is more proof of the Android Fragmentation Problem. Netflix will come Next year to select Android devices LMAO, what kind of bullshit is that.

    • Anonymous

      This has nothing to do with android fragmentation. It’s a problem with Netflix not knowing how to secure their app. Over 100,000 apps work on all Android devices, which is 99.99999909%. Netflix could do the same. ios apps have security issues, but that doesn’t stop them from being released. Netflix got caught with their pants down, now they have to do something. So, instead of taking the time to do it right, they are going to manufacturers to get it on certain phones. So, as they admit, they are the cause of causing a fragmented experience with their product. As pointed out in my other comments, fragmentation isn’t all bad. It’s necessary for the widest penetration. Android is kicking ass. It is what it is.

      • Anonymous

        testing testing???

      • Anonymous

        WTF I cant post anything longer then a few words???

      • Anonymous

        do Androids come with a mute button, cuz u need one…basic feature.

      • Anonymous

        Spewing bs instead of making an intelligent comment or argument pertaining to the subject at hand…shakes head.

      • Anonymous

        Its fragmented half way to hell. Half the handsets out there either run 1.6 or have had features neutered. Nice one carriers. Makes you wish they were like their business partner and had a don’t be evil mantra (cough) bullshit (cough)

      • Anonymous

        Give it another 6 to 9 months Goole boy. We’ll see if fragmentation effects your almighty Evo.

  • Anonymous

    Holy crap all my post finally got posted. Sorry about the multiple posts

  • Anonymous

    Who’s on the crusade here? You claim to not be partial to any OS, but you only talk shit about Android. You call it mediocre, yet it is more functionable and offers more features than any OS. The fact that you think Android is the only smartphone OS available on Sprint, shows your stupidity and apple love. I laughed at you thinking fragmentation will affect my EVO negatively in 6-9 months. It will be running honeycomb or ice cream by then. But, chances are, I may have a new Android superphone by then…who knows. Flash is not as bad as you claim. Give me your email, I’ll send you a video of it in action on my EVO. If people don’t like it, they don’t have to use it. It’s that simple. Better to have that choice, than not. If you had a choice between ATT 3G, or nothing at all, which would you choose? Edge is slooow. But, it would be better than nothing. If you look around, you’ll see that most people have positive things to say about Flash. It has a 5 star rating in the market, with tons of positive comments. Market commenters show no mercy. They tear an app to pieces in the comments if it’s crap. Now, that’ll be all. Good day sir.

    • Anonymous

      Hey dude you forgot your pitcher of cool aid lol

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Johnathan-Timmons/1074131881 Johnathan Timmons

    You put way too much effort into that rant.

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