How to make the most of Amazon Prime Video on Apple TV
The long-awaited Amazon Prime Video is finally available on Apple TV and iOS, and although the UI might not be perfect, support for Siri and Apple's TV app really adds to the user experience.
Amazon Prime Video comes as a free app through the tvOS App Store. It's quick to download, and allows you to browse content without signing in. Owners of the third-generation Apple TV will also find a new Prime Video channel on their home screen.
Using the Apple TV's Siri Remote can be quite a hassle when signing in, but you can hold down the Siri button and voice your credentials. Simply say "capital" before any uppercase letters and you'll be surprised how quick and accurate the voice input is. Amazon also lets users register their Apple TV on another device, via a browser, if they wish.
Once you're in, you'll be greeted with a simple UI on the Home screen, with tabs at the top for everything you'll ever need access to.
From the Apple TV Home screen, you can also hold the Siri button and simply say, "Prime Video," to open the app. This works system-wide, including from within apps like Netflix.
Once in the app, you can swipe up and start browsing through movies, and if you've got the new Apple TV 4K, there's a category of movies with 4K and HDR support.
There's also a category with Channels, like HBO and Showtime, which can be subscribed to as part of Amazon Prime, if you don't want to sign up separately.
If you don't like the browsing UI, you can hold the Siri Button and ask her to find movies for you. We first asked Siri to find new movies in 4K, and Siri did just that. We then asked her to find 4K and HDR movies, and it worked perfectly.
You can also simply say the title of a movie, and Siri will give you a list of every movie that contains that title or is directly related to it. Once you find a title using search, and if it's available on Prime Video, you can instantly play it. If you search and find a movie that's not available on Prime Video, all of the iTunes purchasing options show up, through Apple's TV app.
To avoid that, you can use Siri search to specifically ask for movies on Prime Video. Once you find a title, you can search through seasons, and quickly browse through episodes.
To make the Prime Video experience even better, you can sync all of your purchased Amazon Prime movies with iTunes by utilizing the new Movies Anywhere service. You even get a few actually decent movies for free when you sync Amazon Prime and other services like Vudu and Google Play.
When you play your first title on Prime Video, tvOS will ask you to connect it to the TV app, this will enhance Prime Video integration across all of your connected Apple devices, like the iPhone X and its edge-to-edge screen.
From the Apple TV Home Page, you'll see the Prime Video titles you're currently watching within the Up Next section, and can instantly continue playback.
An interesting thing we noticed is that even though Prime Video can stream in 4K and HDR, it's currently limited to 2.1 stereo sound, meaning 2 speaker channels and 1 subwoofer, but this may be due to a bug in the software, and should hopefully be fixed soon.
Amazon Prime Video comes as a free app through the tvOS App Store. It's quick to download, and allows you to browse content without signing in. Owners of the third-generation Apple TV will also find a new Prime Video channel on their home screen.
Using the Apple TV's Siri Remote can be quite a hassle when signing in, but you can hold down the Siri button and voice your credentials. Simply say "capital" before any uppercase letters and you'll be surprised how quick and accurate the voice input is. Amazon also lets users register their Apple TV on another device, via a browser, if they wish.
Once you're in, you'll be greeted with a simple UI on the Home screen, with tabs at the top for everything you'll ever need access to.
From the Apple TV Home screen, you can also hold the Siri button and simply say, "Prime Video," to open the app. This works system-wide, including from within apps like Netflix.
Once in the app, you can swipe up and start browsing through movies, and if you've got the new Apple TV 4K, there's a category of movies with 4K and HDR support.
There's also a category with Channels, like HBO and Showtime, which can be subscribed to as part of Amazon Prime, if you don't want to sign up separately.
If you don't like the browsing UI, you can hold the Siri Button and ask her to find movies for you. We first asked Siri to find new movies in 4K, and Siri did just that. We then asked her to find 4K and HDR movies, and it worked perfectly.
You can also simply say the title of a movie, and Siri will give you a list of every movie that contains that title or is directly related to it. Once you find a title using search, and if it's available on Prime Video, you can instantly play it. If you search and find a movie that's not available on Prime Video, all of the iTunes purchasing options show up, through Apple's TV app.
To avoid that, you can use Siri search to specifically ask for movies on Prime Video. Once you find a title, you can search through seasons, and quickly browse through episodes.
To make the Prime Video experience even better, you can sync all of your purchased Amazon Prime movies with iTunes by utilizing the new Movies Anywhere service. You even get a few actually decent movies for free when you sync Amazon Prime and other services like Vudu and Google Play.
When you play your first title on Prime Video, tvOS will ask you to connect it to the TV app, this will enhance Prime Video integration across all of your connected Apple devices, like the iPhone X and its edge-to-edge screen.
From the Apple TV Home Page, you'll see the Prime Video titles you're currently watching within the Up Next section, and can instantly continue playback.
An interesting thing we noticed is that even though Prime Video can stream in 4K and HDR, it's currently limited to 2.1 stereo sound, meaning 2 speaker channels and 1 subwoofer, but this may be due to a bug in the software, and should hopefully be fixed soon.
Comments
Honestly, I thought this Amazon Prime video app was vaporware and never coming - they kept missing the dates. In my book, this breathes much needed new life into the AppleTV platform. AppleTV could be so much more, but this finally brings the platform to a reasonable level to consider it.
Ugly and hard to navigate—one of the world's richest 1% could not afford to pay top-rank coders for a native ATV application?
Rene Ritchie calls it the absolute worst app ever slopped together for the ATV. It easily dethrones the Hulu app as the worst and that’s saying something. I thought it was okay at first but the more I use it the more smarmy it gets.
I’m watching Thursday Night Football through Amazon Prine now and it is one of the best looking broadcasts I’ve seen. That counts the Twitter streams from last year, cable & OTA (my previous favorite).
I’m almost convinced the broadcast is in 4K. But I think it is just nice upsampling of a high quality HD stream.
Once content is playing however, the quality jumps to a much more polished experience.
So so right now I’m wishing Apple would give the rest of the world the TVapp, Netflix would join that party, and Amazon get some decent programmers to build a decent ATV front end for Prime Video
Apple TV is wonderful!
... Or, they would be if there was anything on them that I wanted to watch...
I basically use use it for photo streaming and music match, not much more. Pretty much do my movies, TV shows, Netflix, etc thorough my Comcast cable, and Amazon, Hulu etc directly from my TV set.
They are bad at software but they are intentionally making their video app only “good enough”.
Amazon is not interested in making great software for Apple’s platform unless it directly impacts their bottom line.
Retail is their bread and butter.
Audio and Video are hobbies that help make Prime sticky.
How is the ATV interface “clunky” when you’re comparing it to “other offerings are not much better”
So basically everything sucks? Solid logic. I find that really helpful. /s
I love how people buy a tiny black box and expect it to what? Tickle their genitals? It streams stuff. What has Apple done better than the rest? 1) The UI. Which is basically the only thing that matters in a streaming box,(ATV is hands down the best) 2) speed/ efficiency/ power (ATV wins this hands down). 3) Apps/ Games ATV’s App Store is far better than any competitor and for that matter the number of available apps far outstrips ATV’s competitors. 4) Bringing it all together (music, movies, tv and games all in one place.
There is no way the built in apps on your tv or especially the “Comcast interface” are faster or easier to navigate. Never mind what you’re going to do in a year or two when these apps don’t update and are woefully in need of one. Can’t wait to see people upgrading their TVs just to get an app update.
Just because this category of device and services is in its infancy, doesn’t mean Apple isn’t doing better than their competitors. You’re expectations are probably a little unrealistic. If you’re only using your ATV to stream photos you obviously haven’t used it or found use for it and you’re happy with a sub-par experience.
Personally I enjoy having one box and NOT switching from cable service, to game device, to BD player, to streaming stick etc,
Disagree, ATV is a joy to use while I’ve never used a TV system that wasn’t clunky.
If you enjoy it the way it currently works, good for you!
Ah, the curse of low expectations.... never fails.
Ive heard that there are some practical limitations to how well a live feed can be compressed for real-time streaming. Which makes me wonder if the graphics & commercials are always going to be the best looking parts of live sports broadcasts.