Amazon says Instant Video app for tvOS could launch 'within a few weeks'
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.
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.
Comments
I've disconnected the 4 and went back to my stone dead reliable 3rd gen.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nice troll. You hit all the troll talking points. Your check is in the mail. Thank you so much.
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.
GatorGuy...I assume you're a Florida Gator. Sorry about the whoopin my Noles put on you last night.
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.