Steve Job’s now legendary feud with Adobe over its flash product notwithstanding, streaming video is indeed coming to the new Apple iPad. In the run-up to the iPad’s release date, the tech media has been abuzz over the device’s lack of flash support.
With approximately 75% of the web’s streaming video running on the flash platform, how in the world would iPad owners be able to consume this content with their new devices? And furthermore, wouldn’t this so-called Achilles’ heel of the iPad allow competing tablet devices running flavors of Windows and Chrome to position them as superior, at least in this one regard?
As it turns out, it’s not even going to be an issue, as a new batch of streaming apps have won Apple approval for the App Store and will be coming out to coincide with the iPad launch — as evidenced by their listings at AppShopper.
The official Netflix app for the iPad is perhaps the most notable of this bunch. While the app is free for iPad owners, it will work in conjunction with a user’s unlimited Netflix membership and allow users to stream TV shows and movies from the service’s extensive catalog of instantly-available titles.
One of the more appealing features of this new app is its ability to sync movies on your tablet where you left off on your computer.
The Netflix iPad App
Also winning App Store approval today is ABC’s native iPad app that allows streaming of your fave ABC shows like Lost, V, Modern Family, Grey’s Anatomy and so on. With full-length shows streaming to your iPad, the ability to view ABC line-ups for each night, as well as being able to leave and come back to shows without having to start over, this might just be the best way to watch TV in quite some time.
ABC Streaming iPad App
Both apps go live on April 3rd, to coincide with the launch of the new iPad App Store. As one would expect, both apps require a WiFi connection. At this point, it’s still unclear whether either app will work over 3G when Apple releases their 3G iPad later in the month, however I’m going to go out on a bit of a limb here and say it’s unlikely at best.
