Hulu Plus for Android is available now... for six devices
The good news is that Hulu Plus for Android is on the market, but the bad news is that you may not be able to install it yet. The official Hulu Blog has just been updated with news that six phones — Nexus One, Nexus S …
Context & Ripple Effects
Hulu's mobile expansion has been building all spring: store shelves carried Hulu Plus on TiVo promos as far back as May, signaling the service was pushing hard beyond the browser and game consoles. The Android arrival completes the phone leg of that push — but only nominally.
The timing cuts against Hulu: by April 2011 Android had overtaken the iPhone in smartphone market share, and Nielsen's May numbers showed Android users consuming more data than any other smartphone base — exactly the audience a streaming service wants. Yet a six-phone whitelist means most of that data-hungry majority still cannot install the app they just read about.
First-order effects
- Most Android owners are locked out at launch: only Nexus One, Nexus S, and four other handsets can install Hulu Plus today, turning a platform-wide release into a six-device exclusive.
- Hulu's addressable Android subscriber base is effectively capped at early-adopter flagship owners until each additional device passes whatever certification gates the whitelist implies.
Second-order effects
- Handset makers and carriers outside the initial six now have a concrete reason to chase Hulu certification, since missing a marquee subscription app becomes a selling-point disadvantage against Nexus-class flagships.
- Competing subscription video services already running across a broader Android installed base gain a temporary retention edge over Hulu among the excluded majority of Android users.
Third-order effects
- If device-by-device whitelisting remains the norm, Android's fragmentation turns premium video availability into a per-handset negotiation — a structural contrast with the uniform rollouts possible on iOS — making content-app access one more variable in handset purchase decisions.
- For Hulu, the pattern points toward a multi-platform distribution strategy where set-tops, tablets, and connected TVs, not any single phone OS, determine how fast the subscriber base scales.
The trend: Premium streaming services are reaching Android through slow, device-certified rollouts, letting hardware fragmentation — not consumer demand — set the pace of their mobile expansion.