Review: Hulu Plus - Universal App - Is It Worth $9.99/Month?
by Staff Writer
July 1, 2010
Overview
Hulu has finally made its way on to the iPhone and iPad as a free universal app. The free app doesn’t do much as detailed here, providing only 18 videos with 10 TV shows, 6 clips, and one movie. The main part of Hulu Plus is all the content available if you pay the $9.99 monthly fee.
Features
Hulu works over WiFi or 3G, and optimizes viewing for your current network connection. The plus service gives you content not available on the free website which means you can get entire seasons of certain shows rather than just the five most recent episodes like on the website. Hulu provides hit ABC, Fox, and NBC shows as well as many smaller TV networks.The Good
If you like network TV shows then the Hulu app is the best app available in the App Store. Hulu Plus provides access to the most recent seasons of some of the best TV shows around that you can stream on and idevice on any network connection.
The app itself is very well designed giving you multiple ways to sort through their library of content. The app launches quickly, and so do the videos. The video is crisp on WiFi, and pretty good on 3G all things considered. The interface on the iPhone and iPad are both really well made for the individual device.
One of the best aspects is that you can leave a TV show in the middle on the iPad, and continue it right where you left off on the iPhone or vice versa. All you need to do is be logged into the same account on both devices. It really is great to fit your lifestyle, and Hulu Plus even supports fast app switching for iOS 4.
$9.99 is the biggest question mark simply because Hulu.com has always been free. That’s definitely a valid point until you realize that Hulu.com has always only provided four or five of the most recent episodes of a particular series. that’s great to get an episode you missed, but it doesn’t help if you missed a majority of the season or want to watch a show from episode one because it seems interesting.
The Hulu Plus service offers all new content giving you the entire season of some of the highest rated shows on TV. The most recent seasons are ready to stream to you right away in their entirety which is unseen in any service currently. This is a huge boost from their website which doesn’t have much value currently unless you like watching shows week by week online instead of on TV.
There is the entire series of Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, The Office, and 30 Rock. There are the most recent seasons of Lost, 24, Modern Family, Family Guy, Castle, FlashForward, House, Glee, and Bones. There are classic shows as well including Arrested Development, X-Files, Buffy, Firefly, A-Team, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Many people would find some interest in the shows listed above, and since it’s free to browse you can see if there are some shows you would be interested in watching before deciding on signing up for the monthly fee. Then you can always sign up for one month, and watch some shows until you’ve had enough, and then cancel, and wait to pay for another month when a particular show peeks your interest.
When you think of the price of $9.99/month your first reaction is thinking that’s a rip-off. When you further think it through though it’s quite the deal if you like watching TV shows. When TV shows are released on DVD and Blu-Ray they’re about $40 for the whole season. Think of all the different shows you could watch over four months for the same price.
To compare to Netflix’s $8.99/month you get one disc at a time, and with 4 episodes per disc of a 24 episode show that’s six discs. One disc at a time results in two discs per week if you watch all four episodes in one night which still ends up with three weeks at the minimum. For $9.99/month you can watch the whole season as quickly as you want whenever you want never waiting for the discs.
To further the point, the full seasons are available now on Hulu Plus while the discs aren’t going to be released for a couple of months, and then hopefully it’s not a long wait time on Netflix. With Netflix you get online streaming in addition to discs, but is there really anything of value on Netflix’s online streaming? There is definitely nothing recently whether they are movies or TV shows.
There is no doubt when you consider watching TV shows Hulu Plus is a great choice, and you can’t discount the fact that you can watch the shows anywhere. Waiting on discs restricts you to a disc player, or having to convert the files on to your computer to transport to your iPhone or iPad. Hulu lets you watch on the iPhone and iPad over WiFi or 3G.
The Bad
The $9.99/month seems like the only bad because the app is extremely well built. It’s not as big of a negative when you truly think about it because you’re not paying $9.99 for the free web content, but rather brand new unique content. The biggest complaint is that the app doesn’t let you watch the current free content from Hulu.com on your iPhone or iPad. That definitely takes away from the app, but that should make the subscription fee a negative. Now the app isn’t for everyone as Hulu is really for TV and Netflix is for movies. Another problem is that even when you pay $9.99/month you still have to watch 15 second ads at some of the commercial breaks. The ads should disappear once you pay, and are only understandable if the content is free. It’s annoying, but the ads are so short you forget about the annoyance rather quickly. Hopefully, Hulu removes the ads once you sign up for a paid version which may be the case as the Plus service still isn’t a public release.
Hulu also doesn’t have that many older shows with a much greater focus on the most recent content. CBS is not included so you can’t watch all the various CSIs, NCISs, and laugh track comedies. There are no cable shows on their service so HBO and Showtime series are also nonexistent.
Of all the things not included the oddest is the lack of shows from their website. The free web content isn’t in the free app, but some of the free content isn’t even included in Hulu Plus. There are a number of current shows on Hulu.com that aren’t included at all in the app like Hell’s Kitchen, The Simpsons, So You Think You can Dance, Last Comic Standing, The Bachelorette, Pretty Little Liars, and more summer shows.
