Hulu Plus Puts On a Really Big Show on iPhone

Hulu Plus, an app from Hulu, is available for free at the App Store and requires a US$7.99-per-month subscription.

Ever since the 1980s, TV viewers have been trying to get away with something sneaky: They want to watch shows without having to rearrange their social lives and careers in order to keep up with what's going on. Why should you miss poker night on Thursday when you could tape/TiVo/BitTorrent that show for a more convenient time?

The TV industry was horrified when VCRs first arrived but eventually came to tolerate them, and TiVo and other DVRs merely made the process of "taping" a show digital. When it became clear that many viewers wanted access to shows on-demand via the Internet -- and that they were willing to use unregulated file-sharing networks to get them -- the TV industry was motivated to at least try to meet them halfway with offerings like Hulu.

Hulu's way of streaming shows, including recent episodes of popular series, meets the two most basic levels in the modern TV viewer's hierarchy of needs: 1) It lets you watch whenever you want (most stuff on the non-paying version of Hulu has some kind of shelf life, but close enough); and 2) It lets you pause and rewind for conversations, distractions, instant replays, etc.

Hulu does not meet the third need -- the ability to skip commercials. But that's more like a higher-level desire, and I do not begrudge Hulu for making me sit through ads.

Hulu first debuted as a free site, and while it can still be accessed for free, it's now offering a premium service, Hulu Plus, which promises a greater selection of content and the ability to access it all on devices other than a computer, including video game consoles, certain Net-connected TVs, and iPhones. To do that, you'll need the Hulu Plus app as well as a Hulu Plus membership, which costs $8 per month after a one-week free trial.

What's Playing?

Technically, Hulu for iPhone isn't 100 percent members-only. There is a very small selection of content you can get without signing up for anything -- the so-called Free Gallery. Don't expect to get the selection you see on the free desktop version here, though. When I checked, there were all of 10 programs up for grabs, and they ranged in age from last season to an episode of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" that originally aired in 1980 (still a great series, mind you).

Once you start the app, you're invited to start an account (credit card required). Once you sign in using your username and password, you're taken directly to the app's Featured screen, which displays recent episodes from popular series. A button in the upper right corner lets you sort by the type of video you're looking for -- clips, full episodes, movies or all of the above. Touch an entry and it cues up immediately.

Other options include Most Popular, as well as one simply called "TV," which displays all Hulu's television content and can be sorted by shows or networks. Content on Hulu comes from more places than just NBC, ABC and Fox -- BBC, IndieFlix and dozens of outfits I've never heard of before are listed here. Notably absent is CBS, which apparently still doesn't want to come to the table.

Finally, the More option at the bottom of the screen takes you to another menu. From there, you can see a list of available movies (sortable by title and studio), see recently added content, create a queue for yourself, and look at your history of viewed programs. You can also manage your subscriptions here, but in order to add a show to your subscription list, you'll have to find its main page in the Search feature.

Mobility and Selection

One of the main advantages of Hulu Plus is that it can be accessed through devices other than a standard computer. Hulu's mobile performance on iPhone passes the test. Yeah, it doesn't take much to look good on a four-inch screen, but videos cue up quickly and look sharp in both 3G and WiFi. On EDGE ... eh, not so much.

There's a pause/resume button, and a slider control at the bottom. Videos play in landscape mode only.

Since this is streaming data, "mobile" does not necessarily mean "anywhere you want." If you're on a no-WiFi-having plane or anywhere else without a wireless signal, Hulu won't work. And when it does work, mind your data consumption, especially if you're using 3G and you have the type of AT&T contract that limits you to only a few GBs per month. You can find out how much you're using in the iPhone's Settings app under General > Usage.

The biggest quarrel I've heard about Hulu Plus is that despite charging a monthly fee, some of the shows still have commercials which cannot be skipped over. I've tried, but I just can't get myself to be upset over this. Hulu's commercial breaks are typically very short. Yeah, you're paying for it out of pocket, but that's been the same story with other media for decades. Cable TV charges for service, and it has ads. We buy newspapers and magazines, and they carry ads too. If this kind of thing is a gross miscarriage of justice, I guess it's one I've been putting up with for so long that it doesn't even bother me anymore.

Finally, with Hulu Plus, you're also paying for a greater selection of content; in some cases you can find full seasons instead of a handful of recent episodes. For instance, instead of getting the last five episodes of "30 Rock," you can get every episode from every season. And for shows like "Law and Order: SVU," you'll need Hulu Plus to access any full episode.

Bottom Line

Hulu's arrival at the App Store doesn't make the Hulu iOS experience equal to its desktop experience -- not for non-paying users, anyway. Without a Hulu Plus account, its selection is barely a shadow of the desktop's free selection.

But for users willing to pony up $8 per month, Hulu delivers exactly as it should. The app is well-designed, the selection is just as rich as Hulu Plus on the desktop, and the picture comes through beautifully on 3G and WiFi. If on-demand TV on your iPhone is what you're after, I suggest giving Hulu Plus' free trial a spin.