American media-services provider and production company Netflix may soon let you watch your partially downloaded shows and movies on Android.
Netflix has been supporting offline downloads on both mobile and desktop apps since 2016, but it does not let you play any videos that have not been completely downloaded.
This may soon change if anything beta testers of the app say is to go by. “We have found strings inside the Netflix app version 7.58.0 that suggest the company is planning to add the support for playing partially downloaded content.” XDA developers stated.
The ability to be able to watch partially downloaded videos will be useful when you’re on a spotty connection or have limited mobile data.
The idea here is that if you run out of data or lose connection in the middle of downloading, you can at least watch the partially downloaded bits. Another possible application of the feature, is that you could use this feature to get around the buffering issue when you’re on a slow connection. For example, you could start downloading your favorite show, say, 30 min in advance, and then start watching it without any interruption. If done smartly, you can have a buffer-free experience while watching the latest episode.
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A user back in February reached out to Netflix with a suggestion to add support for partial downloads. Netflix replied that they had taken into consideration the suggestion. However, it’s also entirely possible that Netflix may have been working on such feature well before it received the suggestion.
Thanks so much for your feedback, we have taken it into consideration from our end. 😀 *KB
— Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) February 6, 2020
