Netflix has announced the launch of the long awaited streaming app for Android devices, however, it is only available on five devices.
As of right now, the app is available for the Nexus S, Nexus One, T-Mobile G2, HTC Evo 4G and HTC Incredible.
You must be running Android 2.2 (or 2.3 for Nexus S) to download the app.
Netflix was clear to explain why the small selection of phones:
The Android platform is gaining rapid adoption in the mobile world and presents a great opportunity to reach more of our members. Because the platform has evolved so rapidly, there are some significant challenges associated with developing a streaming video application for this ecosystem. One of these challenges is the lack of standard streaming playback features that the Netflix application can use to gain broad penetration across all available Android phones. In the absence of standardization, we have to test each individual handset and launch only on those that can support playback. We are aggressively qualifying phones and look forward to expanding the list of phones on which the Netflix app will be supported. We anticipate that many of these technical challenges will be resolved in the coming months and that we will be able to provide a Netflix application that will work on a large majority of Android phones.
Despite the fragmentation, the company is working on expanding the selection of devices the app will work with:
“e expect to quickly add to the number of phones that can download from Android Market as we work with ecosystem partners to expand playback support.
Result for: world
The Department of Justice has approved Google’s $700 million purchase of ITA Software, the world’s largest flight data company.
As part of the approval, Google must accept certain restrictions, however.
The major restriction is that Google must continue to license ITA software to airfare sites “on commercially reasonable terms” and Google must promise to continue enhancing the software “in a manner consistent” with ITA’s development over the past decade.
Google must also use an internal firewall that will block the company from gaining “competitively sensitive information” off of ITA customers.
Says the DOJ (via CNN):
The Department of Justice’s proposed remedy promotes robust competition for airfare websites by ensuring those websites will continue to have access to ITA’s pricing and shopping software.
ITA software organizes flight data like times, prices, availability and more, and is used on sites like Kayak, Orbitz, Expedia.com, TripAdvisor and Bing, among others.
Result for: world
According to new data from research firm IHS, the Android Market saw revenue grow by 861.5 percent year-over-year (YoY) from 2009 to 2010, although the actual dollar figures are tiny compared to all the other major app stores.
Revenue grew from $11 million in 2009 to $102 million in 2010.
By comparison, the Apple App Store saw 131.9 percent growth YoY, jumping to $1.7 billion.
More surprisingly, the BlackBerry App World had revenue of $165 million, and the Nokia Ovi store saw revenue of $105 million, both larger than Android despite a much smaller selection of available apps.
Google says there are 300,000 Android phones activated daily.
