Netflix Releases High-Definition Product for iPhone

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) fired another shot in the premium online video battles. It will take advantage of the tremendous adoption of the new Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The challenge to Netflix is that, in a world of rapid competition that causes companies to release new features to retain or gain new customers almost every day, the announcement will be lost in the noise.

Netflix management said:

We’re excited to announce that iPhone 6 Plus users will now see Netflix movies and television shows in 1080p resolution, including Netflix originals like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards. All you need is a good WiFi connection.

When Apple announced the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in September, we were excited about the opportunity to extend the Netflix application to different screen sizes. We immediately began work on optimizing our user interface for the larger and higher resolution screens, and we’re happy to announce these changes are included in today’s update to our app. You’ll see more titles on screen to choose from, bigger imagery, and improved performance throughout.

We look forward to feedback on the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus experience.

The “video everywhere” movement is already well underway. That includes video on the iPhone. Even premium producers such as CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) and Time Warner Inc.’s (NYSE: TWX) HBO have said they will release new services. The companies that deliver these products already include Apple and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), to name two of the largest ones.

Amazon describes its Prime Video service this way:

Watch instantly on Fire HD, Amazon Fire TV, game consoles, smart TVs, mobile phones and other streaming devices

The huge e-commerce company would be irresponsible not to target the iPhone. Prime gives its members access to 15,517 movies and 2,321 television shows.

As an aside, smartphone screens are too small for many people to know whether HD content is any different than any other.

Netflix’s challenge as it releases its iPhone 6 service is whether anyone cares.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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