Hulu Plus Is Apple TV-Ready

Word on the web is that Apple is already testing a native Hulu Plus client for the small, black set top box they call Apple TV. Problem is end customers aren’t getting the app.

Not now, anyway, as there seems to be some concern that the Hulu Plus app could eat into iTunes sales on the Apple TV, according to 9to5mac.

The blog claims to have received word that Apple is running a Hulu Plus app internally, and that the company is taking its time reviewing the options.

It has been ready for at least a month now, and it’s a finished product. There are no technical issues standing between Hulu Plus and Apple TV customers worldwide - just political ones, says the source.

Hulu Plus is a monthly subscription service that emerged as a beta in June, 2010. It was let loose as a complete service on November 17, 2010 and, just like the free version of Hulu, it’s ad-supported.

Available as a native app for iPad users, Hulu Plus offers subscribers an expanded content library comprising full seasons and extra episodes of shows that are already available through the main Hulu service.

Upon launch, Hulu Plus was not allowed to run on TV platforms, but was subsequently adopted by network-enabled Blu-ray player vendors, TiVo DVR boxes (Premiere, Premiere XL, and Premiere Elite models), some network-enabled Smart TVs, smartphones, and even game consoles like Nintendo Wii and Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

TV devices compatible with Hulu Plus include the Roku Streaming Player and WD TV Media Player.

Updated in September for the iPhone and iPad, the Hulu Plus iOS app now offers the ability to save an entire season to Queue, a subset of content that includes closed captioning support, and HDMI video out for iPad 2 users (standard definition only).