Picture Credits: Netflix
Over the years, Netflix has experimented with several iterations of a vertical feed on mobile to help the mobile app feel more like Instagram Reels or TikTok, which dominate usage. It’s the latest iteration, officially launching today in select regions, and what the streamer has dubbed its best yet. We’ve had our hands on an iteration of this new vertical feed for a few weeks now, and we also got a walkthrough of the new features from Netflix, along with a few of our burning questions answered.
Starting today (April 30th), Netflix is rolling out a sweeping update of its mobile app. The core of the app was overhauled alongside the connected TVs last year, and, for the most part, the visual changes that came last year are staying put. The biggest changes come with the top and bottom navigation, along with its new vertical feed, which has been in testing throughout much of this past year.
For years, the Netflix mobile app has essentially been a mirror of the TV experience, according to a Netflix representative, just shrunk down for your pocket. But mobile viewing is more fluid and in-the-moment. It’s a constant evolution, and as a result, today, the home screen is getting a noticeable facelift. Here are the big takeaways from the UI shift:
- New Top Navigation Bar: The top of your screen will now group content by entertainment types (Shows, Films, Live Events, Games, etc.).
- ‘New & Hot’ and ‘Games’ Are Moving: You’ll notice the New & Hot section is migrating to this top navigation area, but it won’t be removed entirely.
- A Simplified Bottom Tab: This makes room on the bottom navigation bar for just four core destinations: Home, Clips, Search, and My Netflix.
Picture Credit: Netflix
The headline feature is its long-teased brand-new vertical video feed called Clips. It aims to bring the snappy, highly-visual discovery of apps like TikTok to Netflix, but with a major twist: the ultimate goal isn’t to keep you doomscrolling but rather to discover and feed into “fandom.”
Here’s a full breakdown of what’s changing on your Netflix mobile app, what we learned from the product team, and what’s coming next.
Enter ‘Clips’: Hyper-Personalized Vertical Video
Let’s talk about Clips. Sitting right in the bottom nav, this is a personalized vertical video feed pulling from Netflix’s entire catalog of licensed and original shows, movies, live events, and even behind-the-scenes marketing content.
If this sounds familiar, long-time Netflix members will remember Fast Laughs, the vertical feed Netflix launched back in 2020. You can go back even further to 2018 for the first iteration, where there were circle icons for various shows and mobiles that opened clips for that title when pressed. During our briefing, the team explained that Clips is the direct evolution of these experiments. Fast Laughs proved that members loved vertical video for discovery, but locking it exclusively to comedy clips may have been too limiting.
Previous iterations of vertical feeds on Netflix – Picture Credits: Netflix
Clips opens up the entire Netflix ecosystem, and the personalization here is incredibly granular. It doesn’t just know what shows you like; it knows what aspects of them you like. The team gave a great example: if two different users both love the K-pop group BTS, the feed could potentially serve them completely different clips depending on their habits and behaviors. One user might get a clip from a music documentary, while another gets a snippet from a recently streamed live event, all based on their individual baseline watch habits, fed by Netflix’s algorithm, and now by their behaviors around which clips they watch and interact with.
Crucially, Netflix told me their success metric for this feature is not endless scrolling. The goal is to get you to act. Because of that, the UI is packed with utility to hopefully achieve that goal:
- Add to ‘My List’: A quick tap adds the title straight to your list.
- Context Cues: You’ll see genre tags, synopses, and a progress bar with timestamps so you know exactly what you’re looking at.
- Share: A prominent share arrow lets you text a clip to a friend or blast it out to social media to build fandom.
- Jump Right In: Tap the circular avatar, and you’re instantly taken to the title’s details page to start watching.
First Impressions & What’s Coming Next
Having had hands-on with this for a few weeks now, it’s just as intuitive as explained, with most of the surfaced clips coming from titles the streamer knows I’ve watched or at least have a passing interest in.
It’s not perfect, though, like the previous iterations. Some of the features you take for granted from the likes of TikTok and Instagram, such as being able to fast-forward or rewind easily, aren’t here just yet, but they are in the pipeline, we’re told.
Of course, it’s also missing the social aspect of these feeds that makes them so addictive. Unlike the fast laughs, there’s no way to add reactions, and there’s certainly no comments to interact with. The latter one is the biggest downside from my view, given that the feed operates almost in an echo chamber, and part of the fun on TikTok is seeing what others have to say about a clip.
What also isn’t available at launch but will be available further down the line is collections. Instead of just a personalized feed, you’ll be able to dive into specific genres like reality TV drama, podcasts, reality TV, WWE, comedy, or romance.
Netflix Mobile Clips Collections – Picture Credit: Netflix
Right now and for the foreseeable future, all clips within the application are produced internally by Netflix. We asked whether the Moments feature, introduced last year and allowing people to capture their own clips and share them, would be included. While Moments isn’t part of this rollout, Netflix noted that viewing user-generated clips isn’t available “yet,” leaving the door slightly open for the future.
Netflix also wasn’t able to provide a number of clips that will be in circulation at launch, but said the aim would be to cover Netflix’s entire catalog over time.
I’m particularly glad that New & Hot is sticking around, as earlier iterations of the test had that particular feature hidden away. Everyone uses the Netflix app mobile differently, but personally, I really find that feature useful for discovering what’s coming up and adding things to my queue to watch on my TV. I just wish it weren’t so limited in the number of titles it currently shows.
Netflix Games is also getting a noticeable visibility downgrade here. Previously a permanent spot at the bottom, it’s now relegated to a drop-down menu at the top. That shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, as the division’s goals have shifted towards its TV party game experiences, and it should be noted they still show up organically in various rows on the home screen, but it’s clearly not as big a priority.
Wrapping Up
Speaking on today’s launch, Elizabeth Stone, Netflix’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, said:
“Mobile is an important part of how Netflix members stay connected to the entertainment they love. With our enhanced navigation and Clips, our new vertical video feed, we’re building on past learnings to deliver an experience designed for the way members want to enjoy Netflix on their phones: for the moments in between, to discover a new title, or a quick laugh. Our vision is to make our mobile experience as entertaining as what you watch, delivering increasingly personalized, immersive experiences for any mood or moment. This is just the beginning.”
Rollout Details: The new mobile update and Clips feed begin rolling out today (April 30th at 6 AM PT / 9 AM ET) for users in the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and South Africa. A broader global rollout will follow in the coming months.
Are you excited to try out the new Clips feed? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.
