Instead of building a native visionOS app, Netflix is taking a pass on Apple Vision Pro. Early adopters, get ready to use the Netflix web app in Safari or another browser.
Apple bills Vision Pro as the ultimate entertainment gadget, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a native Netflix app when the expensive device arrives on February 2.
And there won’t be any down the road. Because Netflix competes with Apple on streaming, it won’t let you use its iPad app either. That leaves clunky browser streaming as your only choice when it comes to watching Netflix on Vision Pro.
How to watch Netflix on Vision Pro? In Safari!
In a statement to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, Netflix said its members can run its web app on Vision Pro, “similar to how our members can enjoy Netflix on Macs.”
Your Netflix experience on Vision Pro will suffer without a dedicated app, that’s for sure. For starters, there won’t be an immersive interface like in native apps.
Also, video quality in Netflix’s web app varies by browser. Besides, browser streaming taxes the battery while features like offline watching don’t work at all.
Netflix won’t let you run its iPad app either
Aside from native apps built specifically for visionOS, Vision Pro can also run more than a million iPad apps available on the App Store in a compatibility mode. Any iPad apps download to your Vision Pro appear in a dedicated Compatible Apps folder.
However, developers can optionally prevent their iPad app from appearing in the visionOS App Store, and that’s exactly what Netflix has decided to do.
Netflix is taking a pass on Vision Pro
We haven’t expected the streamer to support Vision Pro with a native app. The company provides native apps for the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. But on the Mac, Netflix is accessible through a browser as there’s no native macOS app available.
The streamer also doesn’t participate in a feature that would integrate its content with the Up Next queue in Apple’s TV app. So Netflix has a history of not fully supporting Apple’s features and platforms like other pupuoar straming services do.
Apple’s list of Vision Pro entertainment apps includes nineteen popular streaming services that will provide native visionOS apps at launch, such as Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Max, Peacock, Paramount+, TikTok, Discovery+ and more.
Naturally, Netflix is notably absent fom this list.