Finally, the most requested feature by Netflix users is here. After many months and several optimizations in compression and encoding, Netflix has enabled temporary downloads of series and movies for offline playback. For now, the feature is only available in the official iOS and Android apps, and not all series allow this mode, but it's a step in the right direction.
The relationship between Netflix and mobile devices is complicated. On one hand, streaming drains the battery, and on the other, data plans suffer. Add the natural intermittence of mobile connectivity, which despite efforts isn't available everywhere. Though we don't have major problems at home using WiFi, Netflix insists you can take its series and movies everywhere, but for that to be true it needed to add a very important feature. For a long time, Netflix said no to the possibility of downloading and playing offline content. Later it was said it might could do something like that, and the main hints about its development leaked in mid-October, indicating the arrival of offline mode before the end of the year. Well, here it is.
Naturally, Netflix has placed some asterisks at the foot of this feature. First, it has only been enabled for iOS and Android apps. Despite many smart and hybrid devices based on Windows, Netflix decided to attack the two most popular mobile operating systems first. Then we discovered that not all series and movies allow offline downloads due to licensing and secondary permissions, but projects produced by Netflix (Stranger Things, Black Mirror, etc.) certainly have the option. Then we detected two quality parameters in downloads, "standard" (720 by 480) and "high", and finally we discovered that some downloads have an expiration date, 48 hours to be precise.
Of course, the availability of certain series and movies for download and playback on the device depends on local catalogs, so users won't see all options immediately, but Netflix is already working on expanding offline mode. In summary: If the wait at the airport gets too long and your WiFi doesn't cooperate, or metro rides give you space you'd rather spend watching something, the new offline mode from Netflix is what you need. App updates are obtained through their respective stores.
