What’s everyone’s favorite U.S. streaming service? Netflix? Hulu? Amazon? Angry buzzer sound! You’re wrong! It’s iTunes, natch, at least according to a recent consumer satisfaction survey by ForeSee.
In the research firm’s 2013 Mobile Satisfaction Index: Media Entertainment Addition (what a mouthful), customers were asked to choose their favorite of 22 different video services. They had a lot of options, including HBO Go, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus and Crackle, but iTunes came out on top.
ForeSee’s explanation:
iTunes is the de facto experience when consumers are using Apple’s iOS platform. The iTunes app comes pre-installed on iPhones and iPads. It is a significant market advantage that users do not have to elect to download the app. Also, it provides guidance to other content and media apps since the iTunes app’s user experience has become the standard for how other apps look, feel, and behave. Millions of consumers then actively choose to engage with iTunes to download content.
Device penetration, in other words, gives iTunes the advantage, even if it can’t match the free video library of services like Netflix, Hulu Plus or Amazon Prime.
Personally, I use Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime more than iTunes, because I have subscriptions. But if I want to watch a movie and don’t mind paying for it, I always go to iTunes, because I know they will have it. What about you?
Via: App Advice
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
8 responses to “iTunes Blows Other Streaming Video Services Out Of The Water In Consumer Satisfaction”
I think your last comment nailed it a bit. It’s there. iTunes gets early rentals, rarely loses things like how Amazon got an exclusive deal on Downton Abbey that yanked it off Netflix etc
Now iTunes isn’t perfect. It needs quicker availability, better pricing etc. subtitles need to work in iOS devices. Add language tracks instead of requiring separate buys and so on. And better discovery and metadata
I don’ believe this for one second. I think there has to be some serious manipulation of numbers going on here. I don’t know a single person who even uses iTunes for video anymore yet, every single one of my friends has a Netflix account, and I do mean every single one. Some of them also use Hulu and Amazon of top of Netflix, but I honestly don’t know a single person who uses iTunes for that. Hell, I haven’t rented or bought video on iTunes in at least 4 years. In fact, I don’t even use it for music anymore. Spotify is king there and supplemented with Google Music Locker. I only open it when I need to do something to my iPhone or iPad. iTunes is losing ground and very quickly.
iTunes has far better video and sound quality than its competitors. Period.
I thought iTunes is this big unwieldy app that everybody hates? Or at least that’s the impression I get from every pundit and poster that ever piped up about it.
Hulu Plus has a great interface and the best response time (loading) BUT their offerings are pretty bare. I prefer their interface to Netflix but dropped HP for Netflix because there just isn’t anything interesting to watch on HP. Netflix on the other hand offers House of Cards, Orange is the New, and just started on season 5 of Breaking Bad. HP has a content problem…
In what world do you live? 1080 is 1080, no matter what service it’s coming from. iTunes and Netflix are exactly the same in this regard.
“iTunes Blows Other Streaming Video Services Out Of The Water…”
Are you for real? Blows them out of the water? The worst one shown is a 5-point difference. They are basically 2 points above average.
Blowing out of the water: 15-20 points
Edging the competition: 1-5 points.
Its called bit rate and compression, they more so affect quality than resolution. Netflix ~6Mb/s iTunes ~15Mb/s Blu-ray ~35Mb/s.