Steve Jobs, master of the Reality Distortion Field.

Netflix vs iTunes movie rentals

On Tuesday Steve Jobs announced what many were expecting, movie rentals were coming to iTunes. The day before Netflix fired a pre-emptive strike by announcing that all but their lowest priced plan would now have unlimited streaming through the “Watch Now” feature. On the surface it seems that Netflix easily wins and keeps Apple’s hope to recreate with movies what it had done with music lingering longer. After looking at it closer, you begin to see that both are really going after different users and there isn’t any reason why they can’t exist together, at least for the time being. The major difference between the two is cost. Netflix is unlimited streaming while iTunes is ala carte. I am a fairly heavy Netflix user (through the mail) and plan to keep my membership plus rent from iTunes from time to time.

Netflix offers mostly older movies and a bunch of recent television shows, Heroes easily owns the Watch Now most viewed top 10. While Apple has about a sixth of the offering Netflix offers, they have mostly newer films available. It will be interesting to see what happens the next six months. Will either one attempt to match the others strength? It’s highly unlikely that Apple can or will match being able to stream television shows for free, they sell plenty of them right now for $1.99 a pop. Netflix likely can’t afford (or maybe the studios just won’t let them) to put new release movies into the Watch Now program while giving them away for free.

So while you’ll hear Apple haters compare the two and claim Netflix wins hands down it isn’t quite that simple when you look at it closer. If you want to watch a lot of older movies (and crappy movies) along with Heroes then Netflix is probably for you. If you want simple and quick access to new releases you’ll probably lean towards iTunes. Chances are people that aren’t harboring any fanboyism will find that a mix of both will work just fine.