Hulu Plus for iOS was updated to version 3.0 today, notably offering a redesigned iPad interface intended to facilitate easier content discovery. With the updated app, users can minimize videos with simple pinch gestures to navigate through the app while the videos continue to stream.
There's also a discovery panel that offers up details on both shows and individual episodes, along with a new selection of curated shows, clips, and movies.
We're excited to introduce you to an entirely new Hulu Plus experience for iPad. In addition to hundreds of internal optimizations, the Hulu Plus app has been redesigned to make browsing more enjoyable than ever and help you discover new and exciting shows with ease. Some things to look out for:
- Minimize a video during playback by tapping the minimize icon or "pinching" the video. The video will continue playing at the bottom of the screen while you use the app to browse, search, or do anything else you can think of.
- Tap on an image of any episode, show, or season to take a peek at what's inside using the new discovery panel. Have fun casually exploring old episodes within a season or learning more about a new show with as little effort as possible. (Want to get straight to watching content? Just double-tap any image).
- Check out collections of editorially curated shows, clips, and movies. We recommend starting with the "Trending Now" collection of the day's hottest clips – it's a great way to see what everybody's talking about right now.
- Watch clips and short-form content inline, just one tap away.
We've made sure to keep all of your favorite features intact, including the popular Kids Lock (iPad-only) which limits the app to ad-free, safe and enjoyable content from our selection of Kids programming.
Hulu Plus is a universal app that can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Top Rated Comments
Bryan
One thing to note, though, if you have a family: Hulu Plus is one active stream at a time, per account. Netflix made a big deal recently of allowing for four or five simultaneous streams instead of two, and I believe Amazon Prime also allows multiple simultaneous streams (but they are so crappy at streaming I've never tested that one). But Hulu Plus allows only one stream at a time. So if the kids are watching something on the AppleTV (any Hulu content) you can't watch a Hulu Plus show on the computer in the other room (but you can watch "normal" Hulu content on that computer).
It's far from a perfect service, but we find most of our "TV" watching (we dropped cable almost 5 years ago now), by bulk, goes to Hulu/Hulu Plus. The rest is just AppleTV rentals/purchases and occasionally we suffer through a show on Amazon.