Amazon Instant Video launches on Apple's iPad App Store
Amazon on Wednesday launched its new Instant Video application for iPad, giving Prime subscribers access to more than 20,000 titles from Prime Instant video.
The new application gives those with Amazon Prime access to TV shows like "Glee," "Downton Abbey" and "Fringe, and movies such as "Mission: Impossible 3," "Mean Girls," and "Ocean's Eleven."
?We want to give customers the convenience of being able to watch all of their movies and TV episodes, wherever they are, on their iPad,? said Anthony Bay, Amazon.com vice president for video. ?Today we?re excited to extend our ?buy once, enjoy everywhere? approach to iPad, giving customers the chance to enjoy more than 120,000 titles from Amazon Instant Video and more than 20,000 titles from Prime Instant Video anytime, anywhere.?
All Amazon customers can also view any content they've already rented or purchased from Amazon Instant Video, including new movies like "21 Jump Street," "Mirror Mirror," and "Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows."
The new iPad-only application includes a "Your Watchlist" feature that lets customers make a list of all the movies and TV episodes they want to watch in the future, regardless of whether they own the video or not. And "Your Video Library" gives iPad customers access to purchases and rentals from Amazon Instant Video on the Web.
To circumvent Apple's requirements for in-app purchases, new content must be bought from Amazon via the iPad's Safari Web browser. Purchases made on Amazon.com through the browser will appear in the Your Video Library section of the iPad application.
Amazon Instant Video for iPad is the second major product launch from the online retailer this week. On Tuesday, the company announced a new scan and match feature for its Cloud Player service, competing directly with Apple's own iTunes Match subscription service.
The new application gives those with Amazon Prime access to TV shows like "Glee," "Downton Abbey" and "Fringe, and movies such as "Mission: Impossible 3," "Mean Girls," and "Ocean's Eleven."
?We want to give customers the convenience of being able to watch all of their movies and TV episodes, wherever they are, on their iPad,? said Anthony Bay, Amazon.com vice president for video. ?Today we?re excited to extend our ?buy once, enjoy everywhere? approach to iPad, giving customers the chance to enjoy more than 120,000 titles from Amazon Instant Video and more than 20,000 titles from Prime Instant Video anytime, anywhere.?
All Amazon customers can also view any content they've already rented or purchased from Amazon Instant Video, including new movies like "21 Jump Street," "Mirror Mirror," and "Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows."
The new iPad-only application includes a "Your Watchlist" feature that lets customers make a list of all the movies and TV episodes they want to watch in the future, regardless of whether they own the video or not. And "Your Video Library" gives iPad customers access to purchases and rentals from Amazon Instant Video on the Web.
To circumvent Apple's requirements for in-app purchases, new content must be bought from Amazon via the iPad's Safari Web browser. Purchases made on Amazon.com through the browser will appear in the Your Video Library section of the iPad application.
Amazon Instant Video for iPad is the second major product launch from the online retailer this week. On Tuesday, the company announced a new scan and match feature for its Cloud Player service, competing directly with Apple's own iTunes Match subscription service.
Comments
Cool. With Hulu Plus now on AppleTV, this can't be far behind.
Originally Posted by Conrail
Cool. With Hulu Plus now on AppleTV, this can't be far behind.
Absolutely it can.
So far every show I try to watch gives me the same error:
Warning: Playback is not allowed on this device.
Hopefully they'll figure out the issue.
Does it support Airplay? If it does then this could be really big. If not it's not a bad thing to have on the road but if it supported AirPlay you'd have me looking there first when it comes times to watch movies and TV shows since I'm already a Prime subscriber.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shadow349
So far every show I try to watch gives me the same error:
Warning: Playback is not allowed on this device.
Hopefully they'll figure out the issue.
Disappointing. I've been waiting for this for a long while.
I'll wait for it to show up on @TV. Although, I am not sure that there is much more there than what, say, Netflix has to offer.
I'm unclear...will it only work for Prime customers or can you rent or purchase individual movies on a per movie basis like I can already on Amazon.com through my Tivo?
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
I'll wait for it to show up on @TV. Although, I am not sure that there is much more there than what, say, Netflix has to offer.
In my experience as both a Netflix subscriber and an Amazon Prime member, the stuff they offer is extremely similar. I have occasionally been able to find a movie that wasn't on one on the other, but rarely. I'm sure it has to do with whatever the studios allow to be streamed. Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense.
At least that's my guess.
Works well, except that the play/pause/volume of my Apple branded headset doesn't work, like it does with most apps.
Fix please.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigmc6000
Does it support Airplay? If it does then this could be really big. If not it's not a bad thing to have on the road but if it supported AirPlay you'd have me looking there first when it comes times to watch movies and TV shows since I'm already a Prime subscriber.
Good question! Or user should be able to 'mirror', correct?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TitanTiger
I'm unclear...will it only work for Prime customers or can you rent or purchase individual movies on a per movie basis like I can already on Amazon.com through my Tivo?
It works like the Kindle app does. I can't rent or purchase shows or movies directly through the app (Apple's restrictions), but I can access the shows I've already purchased, and can either stream them or download them. You can access Amazon.com through Safari and make your purchases there, then switch back and have the purchases available.
I don't know about rentals, however. I've never tried it.
Update: Spoke too soon. Here's the front page of Amazon.com:
"P.S. You can also rent or buy new release movies and TV shows from Amazon Instant Video in your iPad browser or on any PC or Mac. All your rentals and purchases are synced to Your Video Library in the Amazon Instant Video app for iPad, ready for instant viewing or download. Your Video Library is also available anywhere you can stream Amazon Instant Video."
Quote:
Originally Posted by shadow349
So far every show I try to watch gives me the same error:
Warning: Playback is not allowed on this device.
Looks like it may be because the device is jailbroken. Since I don't actually use the JB for anything (more curiosity than anything else), I have no problem doing a restore to see if that solves the problem.
It appears from the posts I have read "Instant" is NOT anywhere near the speed of light !
Glad to see this finally happen. I had been hoping Amazon Instant Video would make its way to the Apple TV, but we finally got it on the PS3 last month so that's not such a big deal anymore.
Doesn't stream through an HTTP proxy. The web version does... Maybe a future version will address the problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by John.B
Glad to see this finally happen. I had been hoping Amazon Instant Video would make its way to the Apple TV, but we finally got it on the PS3 last month so that's not such a big deal anymore.
This is why I finally joined... PS3 support. It's been a mixed bag. The selection is good , but I have only seen a tiny amount of content updated in the 2 months... maybe a dozen new movies and another dozen tv series.
The browser interface is horrible though. Trying to find content is much more difficult unless you want to watch only the most popular items. Otherwise you have to wade through a lot of B movies and misc. forieng films ( some of which are actually good, but many are terrible )
For the non-free stuff there's the silly weird limitations on Movie rentals and selection... for example: You can rent Alien in SD, Alien 3 and 4 in HD, but you can't watch Aliens at all. ( Alien 1 is now available in HD I see, but you still can't rent aliens... )
I guess that's not Amazon's fault.
The quality of the TV series(es?) they support is often terrible, The episodes of Star Trek Voyager, for instance, are worse than VHS quality ( I know, I still have a VHS player! hahahaha )
Yet, some titles are amazing quality. Many TV series that are in HD are fantastic ( Arrested Development, Cheers, The original Star Trek TOS episodes ... )
I wonder why this is.
I wonder if the people who own the rights to the titles are who encode it maybe
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazda 3s
Install Xcon from Cydia; problem solved.
Awesome. Much easier than restoring. Thanks!