Remember a time when the only way we can watch a good movie on an airplane was to bring a bulky hard drive filled with illegally-pirated torrents? Me neither. Finally, after months of speculation and even more years of clamoring, Netflix has updated their mobile app to support offline playback.
Updates have already rolled out to Android and iOS devices all across the world. If you haven’t yet, check out your Netflix app.
At the moment, a lot of Netflix’s shows and movies are already available for offline playback, including Netflix originals The Crown, Narcos, and Orange is the New Black. The selection also includes favorite classics such as Pulp Fiction and The Godfather. Netflix will be adding to this selection as time goes by.
Available shows can be prompted to download with an icon beside the movie or specific episode. You also have two available settings for video quality: standard and high quality. Standard is built for phones with either limited data capabilities or limited storage options, while the reverse is true for high quality videos. A quick check of a 30-minute Archer episode yields around 86MB for standard quality downloads and 355MB for high quality downloads.
Currently, there are no technical limits as to how much of Netflix’s content you can download, except the size of your device’s internal storage, of course. Regardless of your current plan on Netflix, you can download its files for offline consumption.
There is also no word whether a desktop version of the feature will soon roll out. The updated Netflix app is available now on Android and Netflix.
