5 ms·

Testing Netflix on Android

42 points by abraham 15y ago

yarone 15y ago
Shameless plug: those of you who are dealing with testing your Android app to ensure that it works properly across a variety of Android devices might be interested in my project DeviceReady: http://www.deviceready.com http://www.deviceready.com Submit your app and we'll automatically test it on over 25 Android Devices (actual hardware, not emulators).
DiabloD3 15y ago
As much as I enjoy what Netflix does, I wish they'd improve the raw speed of the Android app. Its often faster for me to do queue manipulation through the Netflix website on Firefox Mobile.
- mirsadm 15y ago
  My guess is that it's sluggish because it uses HTML/Webview for the UI (according to the article at least). I am yet to find any app that feels like a native app which uses any of the javascript/HTML5 platforms.
mr_woozy 15y ago
did I miss something? can we stream netflix movies to android devices finally?
- eli 15y ago
  It seems you did. I've been streaming Netflix on my Nexus One for months. It works surprisingly well even over 3G.
  - slug 15y ago
    Since I run it without a problem on a HP touchpad with cyanogenmod 7, and now 9 (android 4.x), I thought it would work just fine on any device...
- lotharbot 15y ago
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.mediaclient&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.me... It may not be compatible with every device type, but it's available for a lot of them.
- Pewpewarrows 15y ago
  Netflix has been live on Android devices for about 9 months.
hristov 15y ago
If they have it running on Android there is simply no excuse not to have it running on Linux.
- jarcoal 15y ago
  ~50% of the smartphone market vs ~1% of the desktop market? I certainly sympathize, but that's the excuse.
  - slug 15y ago
    That's true now, but the android market started from 0% at some point in the past and back then Linux on the desktop was non-zero. I can understand the growth predictions from one and the other but honestly don't see what's the difficulty on writing a multi-platform player, it cannot be because of the DRM requirements I would assume, since they already have it for a linux based machine.
    - shashashasha 15y ago
      Linux has and continues to be a rounding error in terms of marketshare. If it were to grow to something like Android marketshare I'm sure they would consider it, but just saying "android market started from 0% at some point" isn't really justification for them to do Linux right now.
    - iron_ball 15y ago
      Same as the difficulty of writing a multi-platform anything. All development takes time and effort, which equates to money. Netflix is simply measuring expenditure against likely reward.
- bri3d 15y ago
  The media decode pipeline on Android is nearly 100% different from the media decode pipeline on any other flavor of Linux I can think of. I don't know how having Netflix running on Android is really relevant to having it running on vanilla desktop Linux - the effort required is still large and the upside still simply isn't worth it to them, so they don't do it.
paparoger 15y ago
Incredible 2, runs it pretty smooth. Its good if you have a unlimited plan. Just FYI, Crackle has a nice stream to it.
MikeOnFire 15y ago
Good read. Netflix works well on my ps3, sgs2 and PC.
Irfaan 15y ago
Perhaps I missed it, but I couldn't find the 14 device smoke-list actually enumerated. Is it actually listed anywhere? If so, I'd love a pointer to it. If not, anyone know (or have a reasonable guess) what devices are on it?

42 points by abraham 15y ago

Shameless plug: those of you who are dealing with testing your Android app to ensure that it works properly across a variety of Android devices might be interested in my project DeviceReady: http://www.deviceready.com http://www.deviceready.com Submit your app and we'll automatically test it on over 25 Android Devices (actual hardware, not emulators).

DiabloD3 15y ago

As much as I enjoy what Netflix does, I wish they'd improve the raw speed of the Android app. Its often faster for me to do queue manipulation through the Netflix website on Firefox Mobile.

mirsadm 15y ago
My guess is that it's sluggish because it uses HTML/Webview for the UI (according to the article at least). I am yet to find any app that feels like a native app which uses any of the javascript/HTML5 platforms.

mr_woozy 15y ago

did I miss something? can we stream netflix movies to android devices finally?

eli 15y ago
It seems you did. I've been streaming Netflix on my Nexus One for months. It works surprisingly well even over 3G.
- slug 15y ago
  Since I run it without a problem on a HP touchpad with cyanogenmod 7, and now 9 (android 4.x), I thought it would work just fine on any device...
lotharbot 15y ago
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.mediaclient&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.me... It may not be compatible with every device type, but it's available for a lot of them.
Pewpewarrows 15y ago
Netflix has been live on Android devices for about 9 months.

hristov 15y ago

If they have it running on Android there is simply no excuse not to have it running on Linux.

jarcoal 15y ago
~50% of the smartphone market vs ~1% of the desktop market? I certainly sympathize, but that's the excuse.
- slug 15y ago
  That's true now, but the android market started from 0% at some point in the past and back then Linux on the desktop was non-zero. I can understand the growth predictions from one and the other but honestly don't see what's the difficulty on writing a multi-platform player, it cannot be because of the DRM requirements I would assume, since they already have it for a linux based machine.
  - shashashasha 15y ago
    Linux has and continues to be a rounding error in terms of marketshare. If it were to grow to something like Android marketshare I'm sure they would consider it, but just saying "android market started from 0% at some point" isn't really justification for them to do Linux right now.
  - iron_ball 15y ago
    Same as the difficulty of writing a multi-platform anything. All development takes time and effort, which equates to money. Netflix is simply measuring expenditure against likely reward.
bri3d 15y ago
The media decode pipeline on Android is nearly 100% different from the media decode pipeline on any other flavor of Linux I can think of. I don't know how having Netflix running on Android is really relevant to having it running on vanilla desktop Linux - the effort required is still large and the upside still simply isn't worth it to them, so they don't do it.

paparoger 15y ago

Incredible 2, runs it pretty smooth. Its good if you have a unlimited plan. Just FYI, Crackle has a nice stream to it.

MikeOnFire 15y ago

Good read. Netflix works well on my ps3, sgs2 and PC.

Irfaan 15y ago

Perhaps I missed it, but I couldn't find the 14 device smoke-list actually enumerated. Is it actually listed anywhere? If so, I'd love a pointer to it. If not, anyone know (or have a reasonable guess) what devices are on it?