Skip to main content

Mac users should not hold their breath for Netflix to port its iOS app

Macbook Air (2018) Review
Riley Young/Digital Trends

Even after Apple opened the app doors to Mac users to be able to download iOS apps ported with a technology called Catalyst, there’s a notable — and popular — title missing: Netflix. Even though Netflix is accessible on a Mac through a modern web browser, being able to run the video subscription service in its own native app, which would have been a ported version that was originally designed for the iPad, could enable additional features to owners of Apple’s desktop products, including the Mac Mini, iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and the soon-to-launch Mac Pro.

For frequent travelers or those who find themselves in areas with limited internet connectivity, a Catalyst-enabled Netflix app on the Mac would have brought welcomed features, like the ability to download movies and TV shows for offline viewing. Another feature that Mac users won’t get to experience would be picture-in-picture integration with Apple’s platform, according to The Verge.

Recommended Videos

Netflix’s reluctance to embrace the Mac and Apple’s Catalyst development engine at this time doesn’t mean that the company prefers to shun the desktop in favor of tablets and smartphones. On the Windows side, Netflix maintains a Windows 10 app that works well on laptops, tablets, desktops, and convertibles, suggesting that there may likely be broader challenges at this early stage. Bloomberg reported that some apps that were designed specifically for touchscreen input are still jarring to use around the keyboard and mouse paradigm of a desktop. Some video apps cannot hide the mouse cursor while video is playing, a problem that Apple will likely have to correct if it intends on welcoming video services like Netflix to port their iOS apps to the Mac.

“Many of the issues originate from Apple’s initial promise of checkbox simplicity,” Bloomberg reported. “It is indeed that easy, but the resulting ported app still carries over vestiges of its iPad optimizations that don’t work as well on Mac computers.”

Chuong Nguyen
Silicon Valley-based technology reporter and Giants baseball fan who splits his time between Northern California and Southern…
A sticky notes app for Safari transformed how I get work done on macOS
Sticky Notes on a Safari webpage.

Just a few days ago, the Mozilla Foundation announced that Pocket was shutting down. One of the most popular bookmarking and webpage saving tools out there, especially among journalists and researchers, Pocket leaves a gap that will be hard to fill. 

The absence will be felt deeply because there’s no viable alternative that can offer it all in a polished package. To users tied to the Apple Mac ecosystem, they have even fewer choices for a few reasons. The most notable among them all? Safari’s save later and bookmarking system. 

Read more
Apple needs to fix the basics for macOS 26, or let AI run the show
Background apps on M4 MacBook Air.

The Mac apps community is a wonderful place to find utilities that can supercharge your computing experience. Alfred, Raycast, AlDente, and Rectangle are some of the most highly recommended apps for macOS users these days. The open-source community has also produced a few utilities (and their forks) that I use on a daily basis. 

If you read between the lines, you'll notice that these apps fill a functional gap that Apple has yet to offer natively. On the other side of the computing ecosystem, Windows has served those perks for years. Will the next big software upgrade, macOS 26, finally give users an in-house fix? We’ll only get the answer at WWDC 2025 in just over a week from now. 

Read more
Every macOS version in order: from the first public beta to macOS 15
Apple MacBook Air 15 M4 front angled view showing display and keyboard.

Apple’s macOS operating system has changed a lot over the last 25 years, with new features and designs coming and going as the decades have passed. Even the name has been adjusted, starting out as Mac OS X before shortening to OS X and eventually settling on macOS. The world the original version inhabited back in 2000 is very different to today.

Including the initial public beta, Apple has released 22 versions of the Mac operating system so far, with new launches becoming an annual occurrence. But it wasn’t always this way, and there have been some fascinating updates and developments in the time since the first version appeared. Let’s see how macOS has changed over the years.

Read more