Netflix on Tuesday at last brought its app to all Android tablets. Previously limited to a handful of Lenovo tablets and a few others, it was now ready for any Android 3 tablet. Both the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, as Android 2.3 devices, could already get the app.
Along with the universal reach, the movie streaming service also took to revamping its interface. The more visual interface, meant in part to parallel the website, reportedly shows twice as many videos at once, even with larger artwork and detailed thumbnails for in-progress videos. The more horizontally-oriented interface is focused on tablets and is better-suited to touch by letting users swipe through their galleries.
The same interface is also coming to the iPad in “coming weeks,” Netflix said.
With universal tablet reach, Android’s support for Netflix catches up to the iPad in ubiquity on the platform. Netflix launched its app first on the iPad in April 2010 but couldn’t get it to Android at all until a year later due to a splintered copy protection system that required Netflix add in support for specific chipsets and even specific devices. Android 3’s support for modular copy protection simplified its development process.
