Vudu has just confirmed that an app for the fourth-generation Apple TV is in development. The announcement was made on Vudu’s official forum by a company engineer who was unable to offer a firm release date.
Vudu, if you don’t know, is a relatively new addition to the growing contingent of TV and movie on-demand services. It was originally founded as an online video rental and purchase service in 2008 and acquired by Walmart, of all places, in 2010.
The Pros
Under Walmart, an online streaming arm, dubbed ‘Vudu Movies On Us’, only launched in October of last year as an alternative to more well-known and popular services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. Upon its debut, Vudu offered titles like “Mad Max”, “True Grit”, and “Jurassic World”, and it currently boasts thousands of blockbusters and classic movies in its free content streaming library. The free movies are ad-supported to generate revenue.
Vudu is currently supported on other platforms like PlayStation, Roku, Xbox, Chromecast, and other smart TVs. It already has an iOS app that supports AirPlay, meaning you can cast video onto an Apple TV. A native Apple TV app would allow users to leverage Siri Remote to browse content among other conveniences. The company engineer explained in an earlier forum post that Vudu had focused on pushing out HD AirPlay on the mobile app and deprioritized the development of an Apple TV interface because of Apple policies prohibiting third parties from selling movies and TV shows on iOS and tvOS apps.
What Vudu does offer is 4K video support. It also allows users to save digital copies of purchased movies in an online storage locker for later viewing.
The Cons
The retail giant’s fledgling streaming service still has a long, long way to go before attaining anything resembling the level of prominence that Netflix and Amazon enjoy in the on-demand content world. And while it does sell actual TVs by the boatload, unlike its competitors, Walmart doesn’t offer original content on Vudu and has instead restricted its focus to offering blockbuster movie titles and TV content created by major studios.
While Vudu users can download and watch movies and TV shows on demand via the iOS app, they have to complete purchases on the Vudu website first. It’s likely for this same reason that Amazon has yet to launch an Amazon Prime Video app for Apple TV.
Apple is expected to push out a fifth-generation Apple TV model sometime in 2017, with 4K video support, though it’s not clear whether the same upgrade will go for iTunes video.
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