Queue Control – Summary and Conclusion

Over the past week we’ve taken look at a number of various applications designed for managing your Netflix queue from your iPhone or iPod Touch. It’s been interesting process for me look at all of the applications in a certain category, for during the process I’ve gotten a real sense of how various developers can approach crafting an application. It only serves to increase my respect for the men and women who are devoting countless hours to rapidly developing the newest platform in computing. In this final post I’ll give a brief overview and draw a few conclusions.

First off let me say this — while some apps were more polished, graphically interesting, or user-friendly than others, there weren’t any in this group that were bad. There were some I liked more than others but not once did I look at an app and think- "somebody did a lousy job and just rushed this out so that they could have something in the App Store." And believe me, there have been many times since July 11th when I thought just that. Not once here!

I was struck that a few of the applications covered only half the ground I wanted covered. While some were excellent at managing the Netflix queue for physical DVDs, they completely overlooked the instant queue which is such an important part of Netflix now. In other cases, the application was specifically intended for managing the instant queue but overlooked the physical DVD queue entirely. It seems curious to me why anyone would want to have two different applications rather than one that integrates both parts. But that’s just me.

So which application will remain on my iPhone and my iPod touch now that this series is done? The answer is clear…

If I want an application that is specifically intended for managing my Netflix queue it’s iPhlix. Although the application costs $2.99 (which makes it one of the two most expensive apps in this group) what you get for the money is excellent. The application is graphically interesting, manages both your physical DVD queue and your instant DVD queue, it has a nice search feature and it allows you to rapidly search movie database to find it any movies to which a specific actor or director has been connected previously. With this application on your iPhone you’ll likely never have to visit the Netflix website from your computer. That’s definitely worth the cost of the application.

If I want to manage both my physical dvd queue and my instant queue but don’t want to spend $2.99, my choice would be Queuetastic. It is easy to use, offers the important basic features and handles both kinds of queue.

While both are excellent, hoever, I won’t be keeping either on my iPhone. As soon as I’m done with this post I will be re-syncing my iPhone and removing all of the Netflix applications. Why? Because as I already have an application on my iPhone that does everything I need when it comes to managing my Netflix queues. iTV’s Netflix section allows you to search and manage both your physical and your instant queues and it does so quite well. And since I already use the application to check both my television listings and my local theaters, it only makes sense for me use it to manage my Netflix queues as well. The application now integrates all of the visual media that I enjoy and best of all it’s free.

 EDIT: Minutes after I hit "post" I received notification that iTV had just been updated. In addition to everything else, it can now be used to remotely record programs on your home Tivo box AND they are rolling out the long-promised video streaming. WOW!

If you want an application that only addresses your Netflix needs use iPhlix or Queuetastic. For me, iTV is more than enough.