Netflix recently launched a Windows Phone 7 app that lets subscribers stream “watch instantly” videos to their phones. The company has been offering this feature for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users for a few months. But what’s up with Android? You’d think that Netflix would have released an app for the fastest growing smartphone platform before the brand-new Windows Phone 7 OS, right?
Well, as it turns out Netflix has been working on Android software. According to a recent blog post though, there’s just one problem: There’s no universal Digital Rights Management solution available for Android, which means that Netflix has to work with hardware makers on device-specific DRM technology. That process takes a lot more time than developing software that can run on all Windows Phone 7 devices — and it also means that not all Android phones will be able to run the Netflix software once it’s released early next year.