Netflix said in a blog post that Android phones and tablets will be able to stream partial downloads. The feature is being tested on iOS right now, but it will be available in the next months. This means that Netflix subscribers will be able to watch a show or movie even if it hasn’t completed downloading. Users currently need to wait for the download to finish before playing.
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Stream Partial Downloads On Netflix
Netflix claims in the blog post that they included this feature because they know people suffer from unreliable wifi or expensive bandwidth, which can make downloading difficult of their favorite episodes or movies. The latest feature is part of Netflix’s efforts to deliver more features that can assist users, particularly in markets where data stability is a problem, such as India.
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Netflix Chief Product Officer Greg Peters said in an April statement, “We increasingly are understanding what our members needs and sort of the members we haven’t signed up, consumers’ needs generally, in more and more countries. And they all have sort of unique constraints that they’re working through. They have unique expectations from the service. And our job is to learn more and more and more about what those are and make sure that we are being able to offer the service in a way that feels natural that feels delightful to them”.
Netflix introduced the Downloads option in 2016. Netflix claimed at the time that the feature was developed with nations like India in mind. India’s Netflix users are among the most avid content downloaders on the platform.
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Netflix improved this feature in 2018 by introducing Smart Downloads on Android, followed by iOS in 2019. The feature ensures that the next episode of the current series is downloaded. It also deletes episodes after the user has watched them.
Narender Kumar
Always on the quest to learn and share the knowledge. Big fan of books (but not the self help ones) specially fiction. A grammar Nazi who loves to eat, cook, travel and watching thunderstorms.