‘Oops,’ Says Netflix as It Confirms It’s Not Coming to Apple’s TV App
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It was shaping up to be a trifecta of “finallys” this week — at least until the third finisher turned out to be a mistake. First, Apple announced that its Apple TV+ service was finally coming to Android. Then, it beat that by announcing users could finally migrate purchases between Apple Accounts. That was already two remarkable developments in short order, but when Apple fans began seeing Netflix content in Apple’s TV app earlier today, it looked like all of our dreams were finally coming true.
Nearly every streaming provider on the planet integrates with Apple’s TV app, providing users with a single point of access for browsing, searching, and watching content. That content typically opens in the respective streaming apps, but Apple’s app gives users of its set-top box and mobile devices a unified watchlist. Netflix was the lone holdout here, so news that it might finally be getting with the program was met with quite a bit of enthusiasm. Some folks even started up their Netflix subscriptions again.
Sadly, though, it seems that this was not to be. After the folks at FlatpanelsHD and others were prompted to tie Netflix into their Apple TV app, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggested this was likely a bug. Gurman says neither he nor his colleague, Lucas Shaw, was aware of any deal between Apple and Netflix that would facilitate this. After eight years of holding out, it’s doubtful Netflix is suddenly doing this out of the goodness of its corporate heart.
Sure enough, a few hours later, Netflix spokesperson MoMo Zhou told The Verge that the whole was, indeed, a big mistake.
Netflix spokesperson MoMo Zhou has told The Verge that this morning’s window where Netflix appeared as a “participating” service in Apple TV — including temporary support for the watchlist and “continue watching” features — was an error and has now been rolled back. That’s a shame. The jubilation in our comments on the original story was palpable.
Chris Welch, The Verge
The oddest thing about this is that such integration isn’t merely an “oops.” For it to appear this way, somebody at Netflix had to write the code to support Apple’s TV app. That means its foundation is there — and probably has been for years; it’s just waiting to be turned on.
That explains why the rollout was so weird. In addition to the complete lack of official fanfare, only some Netflix content appeared in the TV app, and some features, like playback progress, weren’t functional. The code may be there, but since it was never intended to go into production, it’s half-baked. The “oops” was likely somebody flipping the switch that made it go live.
Still, the fact that somebody at Netflix took the time to build this integration suggests the company may not be as vociferously opposed to Apple’s TV app as it seems. The plumbing is in place; all that’s missing is whatever deal the two companies need to work out to make it happen.
While Netflix has often said that it wants everyone to browse and consume content inside its app, there’s also the matter of potentially giving up too much information to Apple and Google. An integrated library and watch list would give those companies a good indication of Netflix customers’ viewing habits. Apple’s privacy policies preclude it from collecting that kind of data from the Netflix app.
However, Netflix has shown that it is open to such partnerships under the right terms. Three years ago, Plex added a discovery feature similar to Apple’s that somehow managed to include Netflix. Nobody is quite sure how Plex pulled this off, but we have to assume it gave Netflix whatever it wanted for access to the streaming giant’s library. Now, if only Apple could do the same…
