Next in Netflix's Device Queue: iPhones

Earlier this week, Netflix announced it was bringing its Internet-streaming service to the Nintendo Wii (see It’s Official: Netflix To Stream To Nintendo’s Wii), something I had learned last July.

The industry source who had tipped me off about the Wii had also said Netflix will be delivering an app to let iPhone and iPod touch users watch TV shows and movies from their “watch instantly” queue (see Netflix to Stream Videos to iPhone, Nintendo Wii: Source).

So what’s the status of the iPhone app? I contacted my source yesterday who confirmed: Netflix is hoping to bring out iPhone support in 2010. (As usual, Netflix declined to confirm or deny this.)

It was a question of development resources for Netflix, and the company had put a priority on reaching the approximately 26 million Wii owners in the U.S.: “That’s well more than the installed base of Xbox and PlayStation 3,” my source noted.

However, as with other video applications like Sling Media’s SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone, it is almost assured that AT&T would forbid Netflix’s iPhone app from accessing the service over the carrier’s 3G network — consigning it to Wi-Fi-only access.

That’s still a pretty attractive feature, which VOD services from cable, satellite and telcos don’t allow (yet). Waiting for my red-eye last Friday at Las Vegas airport back from CES, I could have watched Buena Vista Social Club, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead or Magnum P.I. — any episode from its eight seasons! — via Netflix on an iPhone (if I had an iPhone).

D’oh! Now that I think about it, could have watched Netflix on my laptop. Now, Netflix needs to add more than Tom Selleck classics and indie films to make “watch instantly” a totally killer, must-have feature.