Vudu and its parent company, Wal-Mart, on Wednesday announced that its customers can start accessing its streaming video content via the web browser on the iPad, opening its library of 20,000 movies and TV shows to owners of the tablet for rent or purchase.
Vudu calls the move a new “navigation experience,” according to CNET, one that bypasses the 30 percent cut Apple takes for in-app purchases, much like the Kindle Cloud Reader released by Amazon on Wednesday. Vudu general manager Ed Lichty told CNET that Vudu now works with over 300 devices.
Asked about competition from Netflix, which is only available via subscription, rather than per-title pricing, Mr. Lichty said: “Most of our customers are also Netflix customers. The preponderance of our consumption are titles that Netflix does not stream. And they won’t stream. I think it’s unlikely that new-release home video window is going to become available for subscription.”
Wal-Mart scooped up Vudu 18 months ago, after its attempt to rent DVDs by mail failed. Wal-Mart this week also shut down its MP3 music store, which failed to make inroads against iTunes.