Netflix will add themed feeds to Clips, the vertical short-video feed in its phone app, in 2027, grouping clips around genres, moods or interests. The company disclosed the plan on Monday, October 26, 2026, in a post on its About Netflix newsroom that also introduced a version of its mobile app built for Apple's foldable iPhone Duo, which reached Apple Stores three days earlier.

According to Netflix, the iPhone Duo version brings a reworked home screen, player controls that reposition themselves depending on how the device is folded, a glow on those controls that reacts to the angle of the hinge, and, at a later and unspecified date, a frame-accurate switch between vertical and horizontal clips. The post contains no figures. It gives no count of Clips users, no share of viewing that happens on phones, no date beyond the year 2027 and no mention of advertising, even though Netflix told buyers in May that its vertical video ad inventory would become available worldwide in that same year.

In Shorts

Netflix changed its phone app so it works on Apple's new folding iPhone, and said it will add themed short-video feeds to the app next year. This matters to advertisers because Netflix has already said that ad space in vertical video opens worldwide in 2027, so its short-video feed could become another place where brands appear. For now the announcement includes no numbers and says nothing about ads, so the effect on ad buyers is still unknown.

Four changes for a folding phone

Netflix built the post around a play on the word move. "At Netflix, we love creating shows and films that move you," it opens, before describing "an elevated mobile experience that also moves with you through all the thrills and emotions our entertainment has to offer." The post carries no author's name. It is filed under Product and tagged Global, but it lists no countries.

"Launching on iPhone Duo, this update reflects the unique ways you use your phone," the company wrote, and then listed four items. The first concerns the home screen, which Netflix calls "more dynamic" and "flexible," promising "an immersive, big-screen feeling to your fingertips the moment you open the app." The second concerns the player. Netflix describes "reimagined player controls that move with you," adapting across four ways of watching it names: full screen, book pose, tent pose and tabletop, "so they stay within reach at all times." The third is cosmetic: "A subtle, reflective glow to the controls that responds to the angle of the hinge to pull you deeper into what's on your screen."

The fourth is not yet available. Netflix labels it "coming soon" and gives no date: "A seamless and frame-accurate switch between vertical and horizontal clips so your phone instantly adapts to what you're watching and how you're watching." The wording suggests that playback would continue from the same frame when a clip changes from one aspect ratio to the other. The post does not explain how the vertical versions are produced, whether the switch applies only to the Clips feed or to full titles as well, or whether it will reach phones other than the iPhone Duo.

Why the hardware forces the redesign

The device explains the list. The iPhone Duo has a 5.4-inch outer display that is used when the phone is closed and a 7.6-inch inner display that is used when it is open. When WebKit documented Safari 27.1 for the device, it gave web viewports ranging from 382 to 951 CSS pixels wide across its display modes, and it noted that the outer display is wider and shorter than other iPhone displays. A video player on that phone has to work on several screen shapes, some of them half folded on a desk or standing upright like a tent.

The home screen Netflix displayed on the inner display shows how the app is now organized. A row of filters sits across the top: Shows, Movies, Podcasts, New & Hot and Categories. A navigation bar at the bottom carries four destinations: Home, Clips, Search and My Netflix. Below a large featured panel for The Diplomat come two rows, "Only on Netflix" and "Your Next Watch." Podcasts appear at the same level as shows and films, and Clips is one of only four main destinations.

From TV mirror to phone-first

The post sets the redesign against a 16-year history. "When we first brought Netflix to Apple's ecosystem in 2010, the mobile app was supposed to simply mirror the TV experience," Netflix wrote, "just on a smaller screen." Downloads followed in 2016, which the company describes as "a new way to take Netflix with you: on your daily commute, on a trip, anywhere without a connection."

That change, according to Netflix, altered the questions its product team asked. "Our team started asking what the phone could do that the TV couldn't," the post says. "We started experimenting with short-form videos and bigger phone-first Billboards." Billboard is Netflix's name for the large featured-title panel at the top of the home screen, such as the one for The Diplomat.

The post makes one claim about viewing habits without putting a number on it: "Many members watch mostly or only on a phone." The post does not size that group. Netflix's first-quarter shareholder letter, published on April 17, 2026, said that about 50% of kids' profiles watch content on mobile devices and tablets, a figure that covers children's profiles only and combines phones with tablets.

Clips, six months on

The same shareholder letter announced a redesigned mobile experience for the end of April, including a vertical video discovery feed. Netflix released it on April 30, 2026, in a post that the October announcement links to. According to that April post, the first wave covered the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Africa. An update dated July 14 added Brazil, France, Germany, Korea and Mexico, and a further update on August 25 said the design was available globally.

The October post summarizes what came out of that launch. "Earlier this year, we unveiled a simpler navigation, making it faster to find what you're in the mood for," Netflix wrote. "We also debuted 'Clips,' a personalized highlight reel with short clips from series, films and specials that helps you decide what to watch or play next, without endless scrolling." The April post added that members can save titles to My List from the feed and share clips by text or on social media.

Clips applies the mechanics of short-form video - full-screen, vertical, one clip after another in a swipeable feed - to excerpts from Netflix's own catalog. Netflix has not described the recommender system that orders the feed, beyond calling it personalized.

What changes in 2027 is the number of feeds. "In 2027, we'll roll out themed 'Clips' categories, more niche feeds built around genres, moods or interests," the post says. According to Netflix, "these feeds give you more ways to discover the breadth and depth of our catalog and find what you want faster."

The 2027 plan differs from what Netflix said in April. Back then, the company said it would soon test Clips collections and intended to expand Clips to podcasts, live programming and genre-based collections such as romance. The October post keeps the genre idea, adds moods and interests, and attaches a year to it. It does not mention podcasts or live programming in Clips, and it does not say whether the test of collections took place.

Three streamers, three vertical feeds

Netflix was not the first subscription streamer in 2026 to put a vertical feed of its own catalog on phones. Disney announced Verts on March 12, 2026, as a swipeable, full-screen feed in the Disney+ mobile app for subscribers in the United States, reachable from a new icon in the navigation bar. Disney did not say whether Verts would carry advertising, and it called the release a first phase.

Amazon followed on May 8. Prime Video's own feed, also called Clips, had launched on the NBA collection page in October 2025, and in May it expanded to movies and shows across the Prime Video library, starting with select customers in the United States on iOS, Android and Fire tablets.

Netflix released its version on April 30, between those two dates. Disney and Amazon started their feeds in the United States, while Netflix said on August 25 that its redesign, Clips included, was available globally. Two of the three services now use the same name for the feature.

More moments of the day

Netflix presents the mobile changes as a way to reach members at different times. "These updates give Netflix the flexibility to fit into more moments of the day for our members all over the world," the company wrote.

That ambition sits against slower growth in viewing. In July, Netflix reported that viewing hours grew 2% year over year in the first half of 2026, to about 97 billion hours. Cleveland Research Company described that rate as much slower than YouTube and social platforms and said Netflix was moving into podcasts, short-form lifestyle video, gaming and partnerships with linear television networks to reach parts of the day outside its evening peak. Co-chief executive Ted Sarandos said at the time that podcast viewing had proved incremental and was concentrated in daytime hours. By October, when it reported third-quarter results, Netflix acknowledged investor concern about its view hours growth.

Podcasts have a visible place in the redesigned app. Netflix and Spotify announced a video podcast distribution partnership on October 14, 2025, for a launch in early 2026, starting in the United States. A Sounds Profitable survey of 5,473 US adults, fielded in August 2026, found that 21% of podcast consumers had used Netflix for podcasts in the previous 12 months, which put Netflix third behind YouTube at 63% and Spotify at 33%. Only 5% named Netflix as the platform they used most.

The advertising question

The October post says nothing about ads. Netflix's advertising plans for the same period, however, run straight through vertical video. At its upfront presentation on May 13, 2026, Netflix said its ads plan reached more than 250 million monthly active viewers worldwide. It described using AI to adapt advertiser assets for formats including vertical video ads and pause ads, and it said new ad inventory across podcasts and vertical video would be available globally in 2027. The same presentation named 15 countries where the ads plan will launch from 2027.

The themed Clips feeds are scheduled for that year as well. Netflix has not said whether Clips carries advertising today, whether the themed feeds will, or whether the vertical inventory promised in May sits inside the feed, inside vertical versions of full titles, or somewhere else. As Netflix describes it, Clips is a discovery tool that sends members to full series, films and specials.

The financial backdrop has shifted since May. On October 20, Netflix lowered its expectation for 2026 advertising revenue to about $2.7 billion from roughly $3 billion, blaming a slower rollout of some ad product capabilities, while still forecasting growth of more than 80%. The third-quarter materials did not update the 2027 timeline for vertical video inventory. In July, Netflix also said it was opening the pause ad format and inventory tied to sports and live events to programmatic buyers, starting that summer. Whether formats tied to the player behave differently across the iPhone Duo's book, tent and tabletop modes is not addressed in the October post.

A $1,999 test bed

The device behind the update is expensive. Apple announced the iPhone Duo on September 9, 2026, at a starting price of $1,999 in the United States, opened pre-orders on October 16 and put it on sale on October 23 in a first wave of more than 70 countries and regions, with 28 more due on October 30. Apple has released no sales figures, so the number of people who will see Netflix's foldable layout is unknown.

Apple is pushing developers to adapt anyway. A notice dated October 5 told them that apps and games submitted from April 2027 will need iPhone Duo screenshots on their App Store product pages. On launch day, Flipboard redesigned its news app as a two-page book for the device, with a slideshow mode that starts automatically in tent pose. Netflix's post followed three days later.

Netflix's post names only Apple's device. It does not mention foldable phones running Android, and it closes with a broad statement of intent rather than a schedule: "After more than 15 years serving our members on mobile, we're excited to keep evolving our experience to move with our members, all the way to iPhone Duo and beyond."

For advertisers and publishers, the October post adds a date and a direction rather than data. Netflix has put a short-video feed among the four main destinations of its phone app, plans to break that feed into themed channels in 2027 and, separately, has promised vertical video ad inventory worldwide in the same year. How those two plans connect, and how many members scroll Clips at all, are questions the company has not yet answered in public.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Netflix, with its phone app's Clips feed and its ad-supported plan, and Apple, whose foldable iPhone Duo the update was built for. Disney and Amazon run comparable vertical feeds.

What: Netflix introduced a version of its mobile app for the iPhone Duo with a reworked home screen, player controls that adapt to full screen, book, tent and tabletop modes, and a hinge-responsive glow, with a frame-accurate switch between vertical and horizontal clips listed as coming soon. It also said themed Clips feeds built around genres, moods or interests will roll out in 2027.

When: Netflix published the post on October 26, 2026, three days after the iPhone Duo went on sale. The themed feeds are due in 2027, the year Netflix has said its vertical video ad inventory becomes available worldwide.

Where: In the Netflix mobile app on the iPhone Duo, with the post tagged Global but listing no countries. Clips itself has been available globally since August 25, 2026.

Why: Netflix says many members watch mostly or only on a phone and wants the app to fit into more moments of the day, at a time when its viewing hours grew 2% in the first half of 2026 and its 2026 ad revenue expectation fell to about $2.7 billion. The post gives no usage figures and does not say whether Clips or the themed feeds will carry ads.