A recent rumor suggests that the popular video streaming site Hulu.com will soon be launching an iPad friendly version of the site.
Nearly 3 years after it was first released, people are still complaining that the iPhone doesn’t support flash. So, naturally, there’s been a lot of vitriol directed at Apple in light of the fact that the iPad will also not support everyone’s favorite or most hated Internet plugin.
Now Flash on the iPhone, I feel, is something that we can not only do without, but are better off without. Steve Jobs has said that Flash is, more often than not, the culprit behind system crashes on OS X – and that’s not exactly something you want to endure when you’re browsing the web on a mobile device.
The iPad, however, is a different animal. It’s high-quality screen makes it an incredible video watching device, and despite all the bad things you might have to say about it, there’s no denying that when it comes to video on the web, Flash is still king. And leading the Flash charge these days is Hulu, the video streaming site that’s the brainchild of NBC Universal, the Fox Entertainment Group, and ABC. Hulu, in case you’re unaware, is an extremely popular site where users can check out ad-supported TV Shows and Movies for free, from classic films from the 80’s to the most recent episodes of current TV hits like ‘Modern Family.’
Hulu seems like a perfect fit for the iPad, but there’s only one problem – all of Hulu’s videos are in Flash.
But the potential success and ubiquity of the iPad has the wheels turning at Hulu headquarters, and rumor has it that Hulu may very well be working on a non-Flash version of Hulu geared specifically for the iPad.
Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch writes:
One rumor I’ve heard from an industry insider is that Hulu is working on an iPad-friendly version of its site that should be ready by the time the iPad hits the market. Hulu itself is still vague about its plans. When asked directly by Om Malik whether Hulu has any plans for the iPad, CEO Jason Kilar recently hemmed and hawed about how he is a big believer in mobile, but wouldn’t confirm or deny anything.
Schonfeld points out that getting Hulu to work on the iPad would not be terribly challenging given that all of their videos are already encoded in the iPad friendly H.264 format, thereby saving Hulu from having to re-encode its entire library of content.
Apple, of course, would prefer that customers purchase their video content via iTunes, as would the big studios, but seeing as how Apple makes little to no money from media sales on iTunes, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind having Hulu be a killer app as long as it helps them push iPads out the door.
