With the iPad only 37/67 days away from the announced ship date(who’s counting anyway), people have started to speculate if Apple and their fearless leader have a few tricks up their sleeve. Trying to put myself in the shoes of Steve, 60 days is a long time to keep up hype for a product and Apple is used to HUGE opening day and week sales. That’s why I think that Apple is going to release a few new things in the next month or so including Hulu for the iPad. If we take a look back at history to the days before iPhone we can see a trend. Between announcement and release of the iPhone, Apple released two new features that were both large. The first was the switch from a scratch prone, weak plastic screen, for a sleek new glass screen instead. The second announcement was the ability to view youtube videos on the iPhone. Youtube and Hulu are the number 1 and number 2 video playback websites on the internet respectively.
The issue that Hulu had on the iPad for Apple is that it would very likely cannibalize sales from Apple’s own homegrown iTunes store. That right there is an issue that would stop me from putting Hulu on the iPad if I were working in Cupertino. Fortunately for those who crave free TV at all times, there is hope after all. Unlike Youtube who’s videos all had to be reworked for the iPhone before launch, all of Hulu’s videos can be made into a quicktime format with the exception of the interactive advertisements. I’m sure that a company that runs a website as popular as Hulu can figure out a workaround without any issue. This way they could bypass the App Store and still reach out to their mobile users.
Personally, Hulu on the iPad would be an advantage for which I’d buy the iPad hands down. That being said I expect a 64 gb iPad 3g to be in my hands April 27th regardless. What do you think, let us know how you feel about Hulu or any other last minute surprises in the comments…
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