Netflix finally released an Android app yesterday allowing subscribers to stream thousands of movies and TV shows to their mobile devices. The bad news is that for now only 5 phones are officially supported. The good news? If you have a rooted Android device it’s not that hard to trick the Netflix app into working on your phone.
Bear in mind, there’s a reason Netflix is only supporting 5 phones at the moment. The company has extensively tested those devices to make sure everything is working properly, so you may run into problems running the app on unsupported devices. But if you’re cool with that, you fan find instructions at reddit for changing your phone’s build.prop file to identify itself as a supported phone. This basically tells the Netflix app that it’s safe to run on your device.
Unfortunately this won’t work with all devices. HTC Thunderbolt users, for instance, have reported problems. And there’s no guarantee that the app won’t crash or work improperly.
There are also reports that the Netflix app runs without any modifications on the Droid X and Droid 2.
The only phones that are officially supported for now are the HTC Evo, HTC Incredible, HTC G2, Google Nexus One, and Samsung Nexus S.
more interested in getting it onto an android tablet
I’m seeing reports that the same technique works with a rooted NOOK Color. You might want to give it a try on your tablet. Just make sure to backup your build.prop first in case anything goes wrong.
Good, you’re on the ball, as usual. Several YouTube vids showing it on rooted NookColor. I haven’t had time to look at any. Also, I don’t have Netflix so this is a low priority for me.