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May 13, 2011

Netflix released on limited Android devices

This is my next reports that Netflix has finally released an Android client for a small number of handsets. This finally brings them (those models at least) up to parity with the iPhone at least as far as this feature is concerned.

From what I've seen the app appears similar in functionality / appearance to the iPhone app. I guess this a good thing. Truth be told I've gotten limited usage out of Netflix on my smartphone. Outside of perhaps streaming a little Invader Zim while I work out I don't find myself using it much. Albeit this stems not so much from problems with Netflix as much as it does from my having a pc, ps3, iPad, and Netflix DVDs themselves to choose from in my other rooms.

However, this brings to mind another annoyance. I have at least 4 different devices I can log into and view movies, my account, queue etc in and all 4 of those devices provide different user experiences. The problem being that these differences don't just seem to be related to size of the device. Navigation, categories, what movies are presented to me (outside of searching) and even what queue I can edit differ amongst them. I love Netflix, but these disparities in UI bug me. I'd really love for Netflix to design a scalable universal client that provides consistency. From any client I should be able to:

  • stream movies (duh!)
  • access my account
  • see the same categories with the same movies
  • modify BOTH my online and offline queues

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