I’ve written before about how Netflix’ video quality, on the iPadOS app, while not bad, is nowhere near the level of Apple TV+, HBO Max, or Disney+. The file sizes told the story, with a normal movie, of around 2 hours, coming in at around 2GB on Netflix, while being closer to 7GB on those other services. This is not to say I couldn’t see it with my eyes though. On Netflix, dark scenes, or those sporting a lot of trees or particles, would show very noticeable compression artifacts. Now I’m starting to think that either something has changed, or I’ve just been doing it wrong.

The other day, while watching The King: Eternal Monarch, connected to a WIFI network, I thought to myself, “This doesn’t look as good as I remember the episodes I watched earlier looking.” Sure enough, the next time I sat down to watch the show, this time on the iPad’s cellular network, which can be as much as 3X faster, it was crystal clear, and as beautiful as I remembered. When I checked the amount of data being used, I found something startling. The episode I watched on WIFI came in at about 857MB. The episode I watched on cellular was more along the lines of 2.6GB! This went against everything I knew about how this stuff works.

For as long as I’ve been using tablets, or any mobile device really, they have always prioritized WIFI connections over cellular. In the early days of this iPad, you couldn’t download apps, backup the system or update the OS unless you were connected to a WIFI network. This never made sense to me in Asia, since everywhere I’ve been, cellular networks tend to be faster and more powerful than WIFI. Most people don’t have personal computers here. They live on their phones. I’ve seen people do Power Point presentations, shoot and edit complete videos, and even write and design magazine type documents, all on their phones. Of course, they also watch shows on their phones. This is probably why you see so many phones with large screens, with no borders, here. (I can’t imagine wanting to carry that around.)

Well, things have certainly changed for this iPad. I’m not sure since when, but these days, I can download apps, OS updates and do just about anything I want over cellular networks. I might get a warning about cellular data usage, but it doesn’t stop the user from doing it. Still, just like tablets have always seemed to prefer WIFI networks over cellular, I was certain that the streaming apps preferred the same. When watching a show on cellular, it would buffer a lot more at “potato quality,” sometimes as much as a full minute, before it would clear up and look good. WIFI usually cleared up instantly. This is why I used to download shows in advance.

Now, at least on Netflix it seems, the tables have turned. Recently, while watching Castlevania Nocturne, an episode came in at 1.2GB. This is a 28 minute cartoon episode! Stuff like this was usually in the 300MB per episode range. While these numbers are amazing, it’s still not quite up there with Apple, or those other platforms, where a normal TV show episode of, say, Stargate Universe is 3.6GB. Regardless, this is far better than I ever gave Netflix credit for. What I want to know now is did Netflix change their app? Is this some change to the iPad OS? Or was it always like this, and I just never gave it a chance because I just assumed WIFI was better? I’m not sure if there’s a way to figure that out, but I am extremely happy with the current Netflix video quality either way.