What I Didn’t Get Out of Netflix For My iPhone

As Netflix seems to be taking over the rental industry for movies, they have also infiltrated the iOS apps. The specific application I am reviewing is the Netflix application for the iPad device. The iPad isn’t the only newest version of the iDevice getting the royal treatment from Netflix but they will also be giving the iPhone a new face-lift for their application as well. So, since the arrival of the application I have been excited and jittery to try it out. I may have been getting myself excited for nothing special. I was really looking forward to being able to make a long list of nicely streaming movies that I could pick and choose from in a queue much like you can do online. Well, the streaming video is available in the queue, but if your looking for a DVD queue your going to have to look elsewhere. The application itself never said that it would have a DVD queue, but I kind of figured it would be something that came with the package (like the iPad). It would be nice to have the full queue bundle in one little application, but as usual, I have to go with another third-party application to fulfill yet another blind spot on the native app. I use MovieFlick for all my queue needs that aren’t fulfilled through the Netflix app.

Getting Video Streaming from Netflix To Your iPhone

Bandwidth and what you are currently running will always determine your quality of streaming video. If you keep getting interrupted by buffering and frequent film stops then your bandwidth is very slow and the Netflix app doesn’t help all that much in that area. Even if you have a 3G connection (which is always so much better in quality), the streams will still have some brief pauses. It’s really a mediocre application if you want to watch short TV shows. If your connection is using WiFi, then your quality of video will probably be a lot better than the 3G (which was very surprising to me). One of the reasons I actually make a monthly payment to Netflix to keep my account open is because they are constantly adding more and more content all the time. There are so many devices that can be used with Netflix and they all can collaborate with each other on when a movie start and stops. This is one of the positive features about this application.

A Download Or Two Wouldn’t Hurt- I have a lot of time in between flights and on flights so thats where I tend to entertain myself the most with movies and such. Even though everything on planes is being changed up to include WiFi, you will still have a slower-that-a-snail speed at which you will be able to view the video. One way to get around this would be to offer videos that could be downloaded and then watched at a later time. If I’m making monthly payments, something like that really should be included in the application. Watching a movie download would be a lot faster and probably release a lot of frustration on my part of slow bandwidth interruptions.

The Conclusion

You basically get the bare minimum with this application. It doesn’t offer too many incentives and is really kind of bland in what it delivers. The one thing I would love to see is a way to watch video without a data connection and for Netflix to be a bit more creative with their apps. After all, there is a lot of competition out there for them to beat,