Although media consumption is one of the few killer apps on the Apple Vision Pro, when the device first came out, there was no Netflix app. Worse, any attempt to play Netflix in the device’s Safari browser resulted in disappointment. The experience was unpleasant at best. The browser simply was not optimized for Netflix streaming.
But fast forward almost a year, and the story has changed. True, there is still no Netflix app for the Vision Pro, but Vision OS 2.0 released with the ability to “Watch web videos from sites such as YouTube.com, Netflix.com, and more with a massive screen, including glow and reflection.”
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This mode of operation is now supported by Netflix. The company specifically documents how to play Netflix content using Safari in one of their tech notes.
Netflix in Safari
All you need to do to play Netflix in Safari is have a Netflix account. Point your browser to Netflix.com and log in.
Once logged in, you can choose any movie or TV show you want to watch.
You’re not given a lot of control, but you can move the video image, place yourself into an environment, and scale the video image to as large as you’d like.
I decided to watch Prodigy as big as possible. Subjectively, that made the viewing screen considerably larger than my living room.
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Overall, watching Netflix in the browser using Vision OS 2.2 (which is what I’m using now) was a far more pleasant and productive experience than I had when I attempted to watch Netflix on the Vision Pro right after the device was first released.
To be clear, the Apple TV+ and Disney+ experiences offer a lot more, and always have. But if you want to watch a Netflix flick and you don’t need too many bells and whistles, the Safari experience is now finally good enough to make it fun.
Supercut
Until Vision OS 2.0, the only practical way to watch Netflix on the Vision Pro was an app called Supercut. With a one-time fee of $4.99, Supercut is designed to give you an optimal Netflix and Prime Video viewing experience on the Vision Pro.
I’m sorry to say that the opportunity for Supercut as an independent offering has been substantially diminished by the current, improved Safari support. Supercut still has the ability to run in a VR environment, scale the screen, and provide enhanced audio.
But those features are now available in the new Safari implementation. There is one reason you might want to spend your five bucks on Supercut, and that’s to have an app dedicated to Netflix viewing. If you don’t want to launch the browser and would prefer to have a dedicated video viewing app for Netflix, Supercut will get you there.
Sketchy Netflix download apps
Most Netflix plans allow you to download selected content on two supported devices at once. But there are limitations. Forvarious licensing reasons, Netflix won’t allow you to download all of its content. You can only download content Netflix has flagged as allowable for download.
You can also only download content using an Android phone or tablet, an iPhone or iPad, an Amazon Fire tablet, or a Google Chromebook (with the Google Play Store installed). Vision Pro is not listed in Netflix’s allowable devices list.
Beyond those devices, and beyond playing back the downloaded video using only the Netflix app, downloading and playing back Netflix content is a violation of Netflix’ terms of service.
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Even so, there are some sketchy download apps that will show up if you do a search on Netflix and either Vision Pro or download. These include ViWizard and Pazu, both of which promote their Netflix download apps, which (possibly illegally and definitely unethically) capture and save Netflix content to MP4, which you can then upload to the device of your choice — including the Vision Pro.
I wouldn’t advise using these tools. Not only might Netflix terminate your account, but you are potentially opening yourself up to copyright violations. Also, apps that allow folks to do previously jailed activities — regardless of whether you think they shouldn’t be restricted — often tend to have malware payloads.
So caveat emptor (buyer beware), caveat descensor (beware downloading or taking down), and caveat extrahentis (beware the one who extracts).
David’s recommendation
I found the updated Safari experience to be quite pleasant. Other than the usual headache I get when wearing the Vision Pro for any extended amount of time, watching Netflix was pretty awesome, if a bit overwhelming. I’d put it on par with the Quest 3 experience I talked about a few months ago.
Do you have a Vision Pro or a Meta Quest VR headset? Have you used either to watch media? What has your experience been? Now that you know Netflix is available (and pretty good) on the Vision Pro, are you more likely to consider getting one? Let us know in the comments below.
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