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Google Android Cellphones Cloud Media Entertainment Technology

Netflix Available For Android 162

supersloshy writes "Netflix has just announced the release of a Netflix Android application for streaming movies to Android-powered mobile devices. As streaming movies requires certain features and specifications, only a select number of devices are supported for now."
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Netflix Available For Android

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  • Supported devices (Score:2, Informative)

    by x*yy*x ( 2058140 )
    So out of hundreds of Android devices it runs on five, while Netflix runs on all iPhones and iPads. And who still says Android isn't fragmented?
    • by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

      So stop being a weenie and edit build.prop.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      Fragmentation is a small price to pay for having the option of more than one non-customizable hardware release a year.

      Netflix fragmentation is mostly due to an inconsistent hardware platform and thus large variance in DRM standards that have been solved later in the devices life with Tegra 2 support being standardized. Is it fragmented, yes, but Google is doing a decent job at closing the fragmentation while still allowing users the freedom to choose from a variety of devices within different price ranges a

      • Really? Is the pace of phone hardware development so fast that there are significant changes every few months? Now, I love seeing a large variety of devices on the market, but a yearly release schedule doesn't sound unrealistic in terms of keeping us with actual development.

        • by afidel ( 530433 )
          Yes, you can choose between a cheap slow device, a dual core device with a large screen, a midsized device with a hardware keyboard, etc or you can have an iphone which comes in two colors. Not to mention you can get 4G speeds on an Android device, oh and you can pick a provider that doesn't suck ass.
    • They are probably the five most popular.

      On the other hand, you have to wonder if you're looking for a phone and you want Netflix, will it run today, will it run tomorrow? Is this exactly the SKU that runs Netflix?

      • They are probably the five most popular.

        Nexus One and Nexus S are two out of those five. Popular? Not bloody likely.

        It seems that it's just devs being lazy or testers being overcautious. Surely any 3.x tablet should be able to run this as well, at the very least?

    • Based on the fact that rooted phones (including my OG Droid) can run this application, this is more Netflix making an arbitrary decision than anything else. Furthermore, as an owner of a Droid, a Xoom, and a G1, I have found that I couldn't care less about the "fragmentation" you speak of. And as a geek and an Android developer, if anybody cared, it would be me. Well, I don't. And I actually know the difference between Eclair, Froyo, and Gingerbread. Joe Android Buyer hasn't the slightest clue what ve
    • by Svartalf ( 2997 )

      Actually, it appears to work on more than just those 5 (Reports of the Incredible working just fine...I'll have an Iconia A500 report here shortly...). It's just that they've CERTIFIED it to work with those 5 and officially support it there. BIG difference than the line you're running up the flagpole.

      • It would be okay if they just said "feel free to install on this and that, but we won't support it". Instead, they've actually made it so that it won't even appear in the Market for "unsupported" devices, and you can't just download and install APK either because it checks hardware.

    • June 30th is getting close ... Netflix might very well disappear from the iOS app store altogether at that point.

    • by JanneM ( 7445 )

      "...while Netflix runs on all iPhones and iPads."

      That would be two devices. Three less than on Android.

      • by RobNich ( 85522 )

        iPhone
        iPhone 3G
        iPhone 3GS
        iPhone 4
        iPad
        iPad 2
        iPod touch
        iPod touch 2nd gen
        iPod touch 3rd gen
        iPod touch 4th gen

    • Seems like Jobs has released his shill army backed by his shill mod army. RUN!!

      Anyway - going by your logic, Android is still doing 2.5 times better than your idevices.

      Some people out there like, you know, choices. And ability to make decisions on their own. I know they are relatively new concepts for you, and you probably would not really like them anyway. Good luck with your walled garden.

    • It runs on most android devices released within a certain timeframe. In the same way that it only runs on iphone's made within a certain timeframe. It doesn't run on my older iphone.

    • by Jonner ( 189691 )

      Since it's streaming good quality video, a certain level of hardware capability and performance is necessary to play smoothly. Netflix can't determine the Android hardware any more than Google can. It's dumb to limit it to such a short list rather than provide general guidelines about hardware requirements and let users try it, but the reason is so that large numbers of people don't have a bad experience and get a bad impression of Netflix.

      It's an odd analogy since Android is mostly Free/Open Source while W

    • I agree, tried to change some of the false to true, but the page does not exist.
      Also, changing normal to weird did not yield the desired effect.

      Why is it so difficult to stick to nice URLs?

  • Well, I have a Nexus S. Unfortunately I'm on 2.2.1 at the moment. As my employers are paying my phone bill, including data overages, I kinda have to follow the order not to root the phone.

    • The Nexus S only ever came with 2.3. How can you have 2.2.1? Did you employer root your device and downgrade it?

    • by Locutus ( 9039 )
      geek? really? The Nexus S only came with Gingerbread and it has been speculated that it is the reason why so many were held back from getting Gingerbread. You might want to recheck what phone you really have and what version of the OS you really have.

      LoB
    • As noted, any Nexus S would already have 2.3, just not the most recent minor version of that.

      As well, any Android phone will happily update over WiFi. Those "OTA" updates are actually "OTI" (over-the-Internet). Obviously, that won't affect the phone bill in any way.

  • Is Android basically modified Linux? If it is, does mean that I might be able to use a Linux + PC combination with Netflix someday?

  • US only? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Cougar Town ( 1669754 ) on Friday May 13, 2011 @04:09PM (#36122246)

    I was excited by this... my Nexus One is on the list! So I clicked the Market link... and... "This item cannot be installed in your device's country." ... damnit! Netflix is available in Canada, why can't they make the app available? I use the Boxee Netflix app just fine here... sigh...

  • Only available on these devices today:
    1. HTC Incredible with Android 2.2
    2. HTC Nexus One with Android 2.2, 2.3
    3. HTC Evo 4G with Android 2.2
    4. HTC G2 with Android 2.2
    5. Samsung Nexus S with Android 2.3.

    They plan more, but no tablets so far... am I the only one who thinks this is strange?

    • by blair1q ( 305137 )

      Yes. They got it to work with a particular library, and decided to drop it before expanding it to use other libraries. Beta-testing and demand evaluation are valuable experiments.

    • I'll have to try and force it to run my Pocket eDGe 2.2 tablet with that hack. If it works, I'll post it up
    • by basotl ( 808388 )
      Works great on my NookColor with Phiremod based on CM7.
      It also works great on my LG Optimus S with CM7.

      Both are unsupported and ones an ereader, the other a low end free Android phone. By running well on this I think it shows how wide the range of hardware it can really run on.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    As others have noted, it is possible to get this on any android device, so long as you have 2.3. I'm on a rooted Droid X 2.2.1, and the app crashes back to desktop after I've changed the build.prop. If I revert by build.prop to factory default, I get an error message that my device isn't supported, and it won't stream anything, but I can still look at my queue, suggestions, etc.

    I believe that VZW has leaked many beta builds of 2.3. You can find them on a few droid enthusiast websites. If you're looking to g

  • We saw this news late last night, so after we went to bed [slashdot.org] i installed the app on my phone and we watched the first ten minutes of Zombieland. Basic playback worked great (at least on WiFi) but i didn't actually try out the controls at all.

    I was somewhat dismayed right after the download when i saw the app was around 20 megs in size (i'm on the original Nexus, so main memory app space is at a premium) but was rather relieved when the move to SD card option reduced the size down to about 800 kb. (For those
  • Seriously?? REALLY?? 5 Fucking phones are supported? WTF is the point?
  • I don't think I've been quite so floored by a piece of tech in a decade...this is almost as good as discovering the web for the first time in 1998 as a "the future is now" kind of moment. I don't care about the interface (yet). I don't care about functionality...I don't even care that it just crashed my phone. I just saw this /. article about five minutes ago, immediately ran to my incredible and then to my nook (rooted)...wasn't available on the nook market for some reason...haven't bothered to investig

  • As streaming movies requires certain features and specifications

    aka DRM? People are pointing at this as evidence of "fragmentation". Yes, android allows some phones to be *less* DRMed. Yes, Android allows you to have a smartphone that's not superpowered enough to run Netflix. Hey, some people don't want or need the Netflix app. I'll take this kind of "fragmentation" anyday over the One Holy Certified Applestolic iThing.

  • As streaming movies requires certain features and specifications, only a select number of devices are supported for now.

    The Nexus One is supported, so it's certainly not hardware specs preventing the install on other Android devices.
  • So with all the caps people have on their 3G/4G connection, streaming movies are the way to go!!!!

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