Netflix rolls out biggest free TV app upgrade in 10 years – but viewers say bosses have made it ‘worse’
NETFLIX has given its TV app a makeover - its biggest update in 10 years.
The streaming giant is testing a new-and-improved app with viewers, which it hopes will be easier to navigate and require less "eye gymnastics," according to Netflix exec Pat Flemming.
Flemming told Reuters viewers eyes were flicking from "the row name to today's top picks, to the box art, to the video, back to the synopsis".
"We really wanted to make that simpler, more intuitive, everything easier to navigate," he explained.
The major revamp rolled out to a subset of roughly 270million viewers on Thursday.
It includes bigger title cards for shows, a fresh layout and highlighted tidbits such as 'Oscar nominated' or 'spent 8 weeks in the top 10'.
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But viewers say bosses have made the app "worse".
"I want the TV app to revert," one onlooker wrote on X (formerly Twitter.
A second person added: "Wow, they managed to make it worse."
Another said: "My muscle memory will need to adjust."
It's a human psyche thing, not an app's problem
By Millie Turner, Technology & Science Reporter
Every few years or so, apps go under the knife for a facelift, often changing colour theme shades, fonts, and layouts.
Then an executive comes out with a statement about how 'contemporary' the change is, and how it was 'designed with users in mind'.
But apps, and the folks behind them, need to wise up to one simple fact: people don't like change.
And there will almost always be backlash to the unveiling of a shiny new design.
We all know how it feels: opening up an app you use everyday, awash with that disgusted, frustrated feeling as your muscle memory is tripping you up over a new layout.
Whether its an "ugly" new WhatsApp update, a Facebook redesign that simply looks "gross" or a Twitter (now X) switch-up that literally gives its users headaches - people like what they know.
Human psychology plays a big role in this.
It's obviously unreasonable to expect app's to fade into relics of their past.
So what's the remedy?
Time - time for consumers to have a little kick and a scream before settling into the new norm.