Amazon says Instant Video app for tvOS could launch 'within a few weeks'

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited December 2015
Amazon Instant Video was notably absent from Apple's tvOS App Store launch lineup in October, and while the e-commerce giant remains mum on future plans, a support team representative let slip that the streaming movie service could hit fourth-generation Apple TVs in a few weeks.




Amazon officially has no comment on a potential Amazon Instant Video app for tvOS, but Dan Bostonweeks, a user of the service's iOS app, received a promising reply from a customer service representative on Friday. According to the unnamed Amazon employee, the company's technical team is already well into the development of a tvOS offering.

"As we have already succeeded in developing an app for iPhone and iPad, we hope to make an app separately for the Apple TV. Hopefully, within a few weeks span, you will be able to see the Amazon Instant Video app feature on your Apple TV," the Amazon representative said.

An AppleInsider reader earlier this month received a similar response from Amazon's support team confirming a tvOS version of Amazon Instant Video was indeed in development. That email correspondence, however, failed to nail down a launch estimate, saying only that the feature could see daylight soon.

With the fourth-generation Apple TV and its accompanying tvOS App Store, Apple opened the door to over-the-top streaming and on-demand services, popular features for customers seeking alternatives to traditional cable television packages. A first weekend breakdown of app downloads showed an expectedly high interest in games, though free and subscription content streaming apps were a close second.

If and when Amazon releases Instant Video for tvOS, the company could also choose to restock Apple TV hardware after yanking both Apple's device and Google Chromecast products from its digital shelves in late October. At the time, Amazon said the decision to remove devices competing with its own Fire TV lineup was an effort to prevent customer confusion over which set-top streamers support Amazon Prime Video.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 76
    Perfect timing. Was considering a Fire TV stick in addition to my ATV 3 so I can easily get Amazon Instant Video on my TV. Was not interested in the ATV4 without this app, now I guess I have to wait a few more weeks until it's official so I can make a purchase, hopefully come Christmas time and the ATV4 can be a great stocking stuffer for myself :)
  • Reply 2 of 76
    Did anyone not realize that this would be coming? Also don't get why Amazon dropped the Apple TV from their listings if they planned on releasing an app right away? My guess is that it won't be available until after Christmas and they wanted to punish Apple for competing against them on books and everything else.
  • Reply 3 of 76
    Awesome
  • Reply 4 of 76
    Good. I'm really into "The Man in the High Castle." Would be great to stream those through my AppleTV (sans unreliable AirPlay).
  • Reply 5 of 76
    Hopefully it's more reliable then the Netflix and Hulu apps. I have to force quit the apps every other day to get them to load and every few days that doesn't work so I have to restart the AppleTV 4 to make it work. Buggiest Apple product over ever had. I'd try a full restore but without the iPhone remote app reentering the passwords for everything is a huge pain. Especially since frequently the apps don't accept the password the first few times you enter them.

    I've disconnected the 4 and went back to my stone dead reliable 3rd gen.
  • Reply 6 of 76
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    Someone on this site was wondering if Amazon would develop an app for AppleTV. I thought that was funny. Of course they will, it's what they do. Every game console and mobile device has Amazon Prime apps.

    Hopefully Apple provides an exclusive TV service to make the device even more desirable. It'll be kinda like the iPhone all over again with everyone's services and exclusive ones.
  • Reply 7 of 76
    Why do you blame Apple over a buggy third party app ? Blame Netflix and Hulu for that...
    They are not even native app lol ! They are port of the old app based on TVML from the Apple TV 3 with an updated GUI
  • Reply 8 of 76
    tenlytenly Posts: 710member
    I own a 17" MacBook Pro, an iPad 1, 3, mini and Air 2, an iPhone 6s+, an Apple TV 2,3 and 4, a 27" 5k iMac and the Apple Watch. I love them all - except for the Apple TV 4.

    No 4K is my first issue. Secondly, there are about a dozen categories Siri can search for in TV shows - but Sitcoms is not one of them? WTF? That's almost all I watch! Even "comedy" is missing from the TV categories. It's there for movies - why not TV? I thought I could ask Siri pretty much anything I could ask her on the phone - but apparently not. The other day I tried to ask her about new movies playing near me and she told me she couldn't help me with movies. Then I tried restaurants - and got the same reply. The lack of support for the Apple Remote app on the iPhone and Apple Watch is annoying (and mind boggling) as is the crappy way we are now forced to enter text. I like the fact that I can download 3rd party apps - and when Siri does know the answer to something, I like the way that it is presented. I also like the new remote - except for the way it has to be used for text entry.

    Overall though, I expected much more for a 4th generation Apple product. I don't see much that differentiates it from the Roku or Amazon products. I have gone back to my Apple 3 TV for now and will probably pick up the new Amazon box so that I'm able to play 4K content. The Apple TV4 will sit and gather dust until they release a firmware update that fixes some of these annoyances and adds some of the missing features.
  • Reply 9 of 76
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member

    I’ll believe it when I see it. First tier service representatives are notoriously misinformed and often blurt out nonsense just to get the call over. The people reporting these answers were probably jawboning the reps about not having the app and were told something positive to get rid of them. You see this in the Apple discussion forums all the time. Somebody reports that an “Apple engineer told me...” and it was nonsense. Amazon could have built an app for the 2nd or 3rd gen Apple TVs but they didn’t. Amazon went so far as to ban the sale of the devices. How could they now build an app and explain that decision? What about the 30% cut Apple wants unless the Amazon app won’t allow in app purchases? We don’t know a thing about the background reasons, who decided what, who banned who. We have an Apple Music app but not a Spotify or Pandora app for the ATV4. Consider the possible reason why and then think about an Amazon app sitting right next to the iTunes apps.

     

    Nope, I’m not buying this report at this time.

  • Reply 10 of 76
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by PowerMacBandit View Post



    Hopefully it's more reliable then the Netflix and Hulu apps. I have to force quit the apps every other day to get them to load and every few days that doesn't work so I have to restart the AppleTV 4 to make it work. Buggiest Apple product over ever had. I'd try a full restore but without the iPhone remote app reentering the passwords for everything is a huge pain. Especially since frequently the apps don't accept the password the first few times you enter them.



    I've disconnected the 4 and went back to my stone dead reliable 3rd gen.



    Nice troll. You hit all the troll talking points. Your check is in the mail. Thank you so much.

  • Reply 11 of 76
    lkrupp wrote: »

    Nice troll. You hit all the troll talking points. Your check is in the mail. Thank you so much.

    Why is that a troll? I have all the same problems with mine. I still love it, but it is buggy as hell and that comes from a sketchy OS, not from the app developers.
  • Reply 12 of 76
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,153member
    ttollerton wrote: »
    Good. I'm really into "The Man in the High Castle." Would be great to stream those through my AppleTV (sans unreliable AirPlay).
    We just stumbled on that show yesterday. Yeah, I think it's going to be pretty good too.
  • Reply 13 of 76
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post

     



    Nice troll. You hit all the troll talking points. Your check is in the mail. Thank you so much.


     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by PowerMacBandit View Post



    Hopefully it's more reliable then the Netflix and Hulu apps. I have to force quit the apps every other day to get them to load and every few days that doesn't work so I have to restart the AppleTV 4 to make it work. Buggiest Apple product over ever had. I'd try a full restore but without the iPhone remote app reentering the passwords for everything is a huge pain. Especially since frequently the apps don't accept the password the first few times you enter them.



    I've disconnected the 4 and went back to my stone dead reliable 3rd gen.



    I was so upset with my ATV 4 that I almost did the same thing.  I would have returned it if Apple hadn't sent it to me for only $0.99 and if I didn't need it for developing apps.

  • Reply 14 of 76
    gatorguy wrote: »
    We just stumbled on that show yesterday. Yeah, I think it's going to be pretty good too.

    GatorGuy...I assume you're a Florida Gator. Sorry about the whoopin my Noles put on you last night. :).
  • Reply 15 of 76
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,153member
    ttollerton wrote: »
    GatorGuy...I assume you're a Florida Gator. Sorry about the whoopin my Noles put on you last night. :).
    See PM. ;)
  • Reply 16 of 76
    Nope not trolling. In fact I haven't seen anyone write down all those problems that I have. The closest I've seen are people saying Netflix is locking up at the choose user screen. Mine doesn't even get there. I get a Netflix logo at the bottom right and no spinning loading thing in the middle. Hulu does something similar just a grey screen and doesn't load. If force quoting them doesn't work then I have to resart the entire unit which also sometimes take more then once before the apps load.
  • Reply 17 of 76

    Wow... reading some of the comments... I think I'm better off with that Fire stick and ATV3 instead of getting this new ATV4... Is it really that buggy? I watch Netflix and HBO pretty much all the time, if these are unreliable, then I will skip the ATV4.

  • Reply 18 of 76
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,712member
    acgmph wrote: »
    Wow... reading some of the comments... I think I'm better off with that Fire stick and ATV3 instead of getting this new ATV4... Is it really that buggy? I watch Netflix and HBO pretty much all the time, if these are unreliable, then I will skip the ATV4.

    Ours has been flawless and a joy to use. It depends you you believe I guess.
  • Reply 19 of 76
    thrangthrang Posts: 1,005member
    Get all the kinks worked out for Gear Knobs, or whatever it's really called, it launched next year. I'm ready for more Orangutan, Captain Slow, and Hamster...
  • Reply 20 of 76
    acgmph wrote: »
    Perfect timing. Was considering a Fire TV stick in addition to my ATV 3 so I can easily get Amazon Instant Video on my TV. Was not interested in the ATV4 without this app, now I guess I have to wait a few more weeks until it's official so I can make a purchase, hopefully come Christmas time and the ATV4 can be a great stocking stuffer for myself :)
    I sent a message to Amazon to remove auto-renewal of my Prime account because of their stance on ATV4 and lack of app on the device. Not interested in collecting a bunch of other hardware solutions for TV. Not that my membership will have any impact on their business, but it's one way to send a message to Amazon. Manual renewal is still on the table when it comes due in April. Suggest others who want Amazon Prime on ATV4 to do the same - one way to cast your vote.
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