Official RedBox Instant app sneaks into the Play Store; rooted users need not apply
We’ve been hearing a lot about Redbox Instant as of late. It has been rumored to be a collaboration between Redbox and Verizon, a natural marriage considering the “red” nature of both companies. A competitor to the likes of Netflix, Redbox Instant will allow you to access a nice collection of movies instantly via streaming. It’s a paid monthly service that Redbox seems to claim will provide more value than Netflix, and checking it out for the first month will cost you no more than the time and bandwidth it takes to download.
One problem is that the app doesn’t seem to be working for rooted devices. Since the error message rooted users receive is a generic error code we can’t tell if Verizon and Redbox meant to implement this restriction, but as it stands Redbox is enjoying an unhealthy dosage of one-star reviews in the Play Store due to the restriction.
The Redbox instant app goes beyond the streaming aspect of it as it has incorporated mobile Redbox reservation features. You can reserve movies at your local box to ensure the movies will be there before you drive out to pick it up. The free month you get will also net your 4 DVD credits so you can check out the physical Redbox service in full.
Other features of the app include the ability to buy and rent titles to watch on your devices, so if there’s one specific movie you want to see without being tied to a subscription option then that certainly is an option. We imagine the selection for buying and renting will be a lot deeper than the selection offered to you through the monthly streaming subscription so that’s one reason why you’d want to go that route for a movie night.
Strangely enough the app is available to non Verizon devices despite Verizon putting its stamp all over it. We’re not sure if this is an early mix-up (without an official announcement they probably didn’t expect it to matter) but let’s hope this isn’t an exclusive for Verizon customers — we would hate for anyone to be left out of the fun. Go ahead and take a look for yourself in the Google Play Store.
[Note]: As noted in the comments section, you’ll probably need an invitation code to use this app. You can grab one of those from this link. Also, users who are rooted can try disabling the superuser option in the latest superuser app in order to get the app to work. Disabling it when you want to use Redbox Instant and re-enabling it afterward should be a solid course of action for you without having to fully unroot your device. Similar options may exist in other root management apps so be sure to look through them and see if you can do the same.
[Thanks Thomas, Paul and David!]