After months of rumors, Netflix has added an offline viewing feature to its application, as seen in the newly released Netflix 9.0.1 app for iOS.
According to Netflix, “many favorite streaming series and movies are already available for download, with more on the way.” Some of the content that’s ready to download includes Orange Is The New Black, Narcos and The Crown.
Users can snag content from a new “Available for Download” category within the app. When the option is available for an episode or movie, tap the download button like in the image below.
You can also distinguish between standard and high quality downloads, which affect the space occupied by the download.
There’s currently no word as to when an offline feature will be released for the desktop version of the app.
Netflix 9.0.1 requires iOS 8.0 or later to install and run.
If you’ve tried the new offline viewing mode and have any feedback to offer, let us know in the comments.
Update: A new report has found an issue with the new version. Users of Chromecast or AirPlay steaming will be prevented from downloading movies and tv shows from being watched on anything other than the device on which they were downloaded.
In the case of Chromecast, the dongle actually handles the streaming with the Netflix app acting more as a remote control than anything else. With the new version of the Netflix app, the downloaded content is not playable via third party devices and you can’t even choose to play the streaming version instead of the locally saved one.
For example, you might download your favorite movie on you Netflix app. You can’t send that downloaded content to a Chromecast or via AirPlay. If you want to watch any of the movies or shows you’ve saved locally on any other device, you have to delete them from your “My Downloads” tab and then select them from Netflix’s listings.
So, there’s good parts and bad parts to the new version of Netflix and hopefully the next update will sort this out.
Via The Next Web, the App Store and Boy Genius Report