Nov 03

Netflix iPhone!

Founded by Marc Randolph back in 1997, Netflix quickly became one of the most successful dot-com ventures, growing to 670,000 monthly subscribers in only 5 years. After another 5 years, Netflix managed to have a revenue of $1.2 billion, although the net income was only a fraction of that - almost $67 million. Anyway, we're not going to talk about market share now, since there's something even more interesting - Netflix iPhone edition, one step closer!

Currently, any Intel Mac user who likes adventure (that's what I call using Beta-stage software - "an adventure," since you never know what can really happen) can join in and test Watch Instantly for Mac. Did I just say "any Intel Mac user?" My bad, let me fix it - "any Mac user with a qualifying Netflix subscription and a system powerful enough to play videos using Microsoft's Silverlight plugin" is much better!

Before signing up, you should take these into account:

- There may be bugs. We are logging all errors, but if you run into problems you can help out by posting details here in the blog comments.
- Not all movies are available to watch with Silverlight. You may notice errors or lower than normal quality when watching certain titles.
- Our new player works on PCs and Intel-based Macs.
- Windows users should be aware that if you opt in, you will need to use Silverlight on all the machines you use to watch instantly.

That's what Netflix says, of course. The unlimited video streaming service comes for at least $9/month, and was a kind of "Forbidden Kingdom" for Mac users, until now. Well, another barrier falls down, so now that we have Netflix Mac, next logical step would be to make this turn into Netflix iPhone, don't you think?