How to run the Netflix app on any Android device

Talk about good news/bad news. Last week, the long-awaited Netflix app for Android finally arrived--but only for five phones. If you own, say, an HTC Thunderbolt, Motorola Droid 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab, or other incompatible device, the waiting game goes on.

Or not, if youre tech-savvy enough to root (that is, jailbreak) your device and fiddle with some settings. Over at Reddit, a user by the name of natemckn explains how to make Netflix for Android work on unsupported devices.

The hack works by fooling the Netflix app into thinking your phone or tablet is one of the supported models. Assuming youve already rooted it, the process looks fairly simple: using any root file editor, just edit a few lines in the devices build.prop file. Then reboot, install the Netflix app, and youre good to go.

The author says hes tested this on an LG Optimus V, and it worked like a charm. I do advise reading the user comments, however, to see how others have fared with other models. Some reported success, while others werent able to get the hack to work. As always, any time youre messing with your phones settings, you run the risk of gumming up the works. If you dont know what youre doing, you may want to wait for an official Netflix update.

Im in the process of trying this now on a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and will update the post later with some test results. In the meantime, if you decide to give this a whirl yourself, hit the comments and let me know how it went.