The experience of watching Netflix using an Android device has been improved this week with the introduction of support for partial download viewing.
You've been able to download Netflix TV show episodes and movies to your Android device for a while now (the downloads can even happen automatically), but each download needed to be complete before becoming watchable. That's no longer the case, though. It's now possible to start watching before a download is complete, which should help avoid those situations where you lose connection and are left unable to watch.
Keela Robison, Vice President, Product Innovation at Netflix, says that losing a Wi-Fi connection during a download is no longer something to worry about because, "Once you’ve regained a strong enough connection, you can choose to finish the download and keep watching — avoiding those surprise notices that you’ve gone over your data limits."
For now, partial downloads are only supported on Android, but iOS users need not worry. Robison also confirmed that Netflix intends to begin testing the feature for Apple's mobile OS "in the coming months," although there's no indication of when it will roll out to the iOS Netflix app.