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Netflix finally makes an Android app worth downloading

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Many people have different opinions about Netflix. Whether they think the rollout of new content is too stagnant, that the service is too expensive or that the videos aren’t of acceptable quality will change from person to person.

One thing that cannot be denied, however, is that their Android app was awful. I mean, it worked, but it wasn’t a joy to use. It was slow, clunky, and laggy. The developers were a tad lazy in their haste to get this up on Android back in 2011, opting to go with the always-horrendous HTML-based user interface opposed to a native one.

Thankfully, all of that is changing with today’s update. The app is much smoother, with Netflix seemingly employing some hardware acceleration to make navigating content a breeze. The app still keeps similar elements of the previous design, unfortunately, which means they still aren’t following Holo guidelines. Still, this is a great first step to what we hope is a much better future. Go ahead and grab the goods in the Google Play Store as soon as possible.

[via The Verge]

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

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28 Comments

  1. Seems about the same to me, only smoother. Though, it takes much longer for me to get to the end of “My List” now that it only scolls in threes =(
    I wish there was a “My List” Manager in the mobile app where I could rearrange my videos so they are easier to get to. Instead, I have to boot up the dusty laptop each time.

    EDIT: at least they did make it so that when you add a new show/movie, it goes to the top of the list now, instead of the bottom. Great addition there.

  2. What’s the difference?

  3. Whatever they did it certainly isn’t optimised for the S4 – it just got worse

    1. That sucks it runs great on my S3. Huge improvement in UI speed and no lag anywhere so far.

      1. Uninstall, reboot and reinstall has sorted it out.

  4. No profiles yet?

  5. The lack of support for profiles means I can’t use this app on Android. This has become extremely annoying.

  6. Now, if they would only add some updated movies

  7. Still no update for me.

  8. Still no update as of now. I really wish they would support profiles as well.

  9. I have been using the app all year on my Kindle with no real issues. Is the Kindle version tweaked for optimization?

    1. The newest update that, for me, came out 17Oct is amazingly smooth, not that the previous ones were bad for me either, but you’ll see the difference.

  10. Mine shows the update was released two days ago… Just launched it and it was smoother, so idk if there is supposed to be ANOTHER one two days after that last one on today or not…

    1. Ditto.

    2. Dude, I never knew there was a problem until I got the update, and the 17th October update is day to the night of all previous releases.

  11. I’d like to see profiles on Sony Google TV.

  12. awesome. I like using it as a remote for my PS3 netflix account.

  13. Haven’t tried it yet.

  14. Never had a problem before…

  15. Thank the heavens. My gosh. It was so horrible to use. How dare it not have landscape view? LoL!!

  16. No profiles and everything looks exactly the same. Only thing I noticed is load times were a little faster and transitions were faster.

  17. Never had a single issue. Fast, excellent quality videos. Lucky me I suppose. Chromecast icon still ruins the top bar formatting on the S4.

  18. Profiles Please

  19. And still no ability to manage disk queue? They took that out of the APIs, ruining third-party apps, then refuse to provide the function in theirs. Boo!

  20. I dream of the day when they give us offline viewing

    1. Oooh, offline viewing? Streaming and downloading would be two different services they’d offer. Downloading Netflix content for offline viewing seems difficult or perhaps very taxing on your on board storage of your device or memory card.

  21. Never had a problem before (on phone or tablet) and don’t see any difference now. Was the problem just that it was “slow, clunky, and laggy”? Because I never experienced any lag, slowness, or clunkiness.

  22. I finally got the update last night!! the interface is so smooth and very fast! I’m glad they are doing things better for their app!

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