Your Netflix app is going to change as the company competes with Instagram for your attention
Netflix is planning to redesign its mobile app (again) amid changing priorities for the streaming giant. And you should expect — like lots of other apps — a shift toward TikTok-style vertical video.
Netflix indicated its plans during an earnings call this week. Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters noted in the call that the planned mobile redesign followed a similar overhaul of its TV user interface.
"Just as you've seen us do with the new TV UI, we're working on a new mobile UI that will better serve the expansion of our business over the decade to come," Peters said in the call. "We're gonna roll this out later in 2026. And just like our TV UI, it then becomes a starting point. It becomes a platform for us to continue to iterate, test, evolve, and improve our offerings."
At the investor earnings call, Netflix's other CEO, Ted Sarandos, also called out Instagram as a competitor to watch.
"TV is not what we grew up on. TV is now just about everything,” he said, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. “The Oscars and the NFL are on YouTube. Networks are simulcasting the Super Bowl on linear TV and streaming. Amazon owns MGM, Apple is competing for Emmys and Oscars, and Instagram is coming next.”
The planned redesign also follows Netflix's recent push into podcasts, a medium that often creates viral vertical videos.
"You can imagine us bringing more clips based on new content types like video podcasts," Peters noted.
The exact details of Netflix's mobile redesign remain undisclosed, but you can expect an app that integrates the many ways in which the streaming giant has infiltrated our lives. That could mean clips from a podcast, an NFL highlight, or the somewhat disappointing end to a hit show.