I’m at the age where I have a pre-written packing list for whenever I travel, and the very last item on the list, though certainly not the least, is entertainment. I almost see it as a reward for myself. When I’ve got all my clothes and medications packed away, I get to sit down with my iPad and download my favorite shows to watch on the plane. The problem is that, after awhile of manually downloading episode by episode, it stops being fun.
That’s where Netflix’s newest feature for iPhone and iPad comes into play. Now, after updating your app, the display pages for your favorite shows will show a “Download Season” button next to the share icon. Android users already had this button, but now Apple users can take advantage of it, too.
It looks like a downward-pointing arrow with two curved lines underneath it, and tapping it will immediately start downloading an entire season at once, complete with a progress indicator. In addition to saving you from multiple taps, this also lets you get up and go do something else while your show downloads, rather than having to wait for one episode to finish downloading before you start downloading the next.
It’s worth pointing out that while you technically already could download multiple episodes at once by simply tapping the download button next to each episode in quick succession, I’ve found that this tends to create errors. Luckily, I got no such errors while downloading season 2 of Squid Game using the new button, and it even seemed to download faster, probably due to the efficiency of sending Netflix’s servers one request as opposed to seven.
Netflix didn’t make any mention of what happens if downloading a whole season would put you over your download limit, but after testing, I found that you can still press the “Download Season” button, but it will only download as many episodes as you have remaining while refusing to download the rest.
