Watching Watching the the Tube Tube & & the the Big Big Screen Screen
Best App for Watching Hollywood Movies ≠≠Honorable Mention
Netflix
Free Version: 1.1.2 | Netflix
iTunes Free Apple
At Leisure
Picture the perfect movie-watching app: it’s kinda like the iTunes Music Store, no? Any movie, any time after its release, reasonably priced ($10 for cinema-synced releases? Betcha about 10 million new parents would pony up for that), without viewer-hostile watching restrictions. Once you return from la-la land, the closest you can get to that is an app you don’t have to download, and which many iPad owners forget about: the iTunes app, and specifically, its Movies tab. You’ll find a decent selection of buck-a-pop rentals, plus a surprisingly good collection of movies that seems to keep growing. 72
genre genius: Don’t forget the Genres button (top left), where you’ll find well-stocked classics (Gone With the Wind, La Dolce Vita), most available for rent ($3 standard def, $4 HD; newer releases a buck extra). Need inspiration? The Genius tab tracks your previous purchases and rentals and suggests more. Not all movies are available for rental, but most are. To watch the movies, open the Videos app, where you’ll see your download waiting after about 15 minutes. Bummer: you can’t start watching till the download’s done.
Want a somewhat larger (though not necessarily better) movie selection than iTunes? Want instant-on satisfaction and the modern surfer’s ability to start, stop, and switch to something different? Then Netflix is for you, and it comes with only two asterisk-worthy qualifications. First, you have to be a regular paying member; plans start at $10/month, which also gets you one DVD at a time by mail. Next caveat concerns the selection. Netflix is constantly paying for more and better movies, but the pickings are slim-ish.