Since the new Apple TV launched last month, one notably missing app has been Amazon Video. There’s been a lot of speculation as to what the reasoning for the unexplained absence, with some accusing Apple of blocking Amazon from launching the app on tvOS and others accusing Amazon of not developing for the platform as to encourage users to use its own Fire TV products. Now, however, it looks like Amazon is planning to release a tvOS app after all…
Engineer Dan Bostonweeks reached out to Amazon via its feedback system and asked the company about the lack of tvOS support. Bostonweeks received a response from the company in which the customer service representative says that its technical team is currently developing an app for tvOS. “As we have already succeeded in developing an app for iPhone and iPad, we hope to make an app separately for Apple TV,” the company said.
As far as a release date goes, Amazon says it “hopefully” plans to release the app within a “few weeks span.” For those unfamiliar, Amazon Video will allow those with a Prime membership to instantly stream movies and TVs from Amazon’s catalog, as well as rent and purchase titles.
Amazon Video has never been available on Apple TV, so the company’s tvOS app will certainly be welcomed by customers. While it’s always possible that the specific customer service rep who responded to Bostonweeks’ claim was misinformed, it seems more than likely that we’ll see the app sooner rather than later.
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Wow, this is pretty amazing. I still would not recommend the Apple TV over a 4K capable android based STB, but having Amazon on it will make a world of difference.
4K will be irrelevant for some time and nobody is making apps for android tv. Meanwhile apps are flooding out for Apple TV.
3 out of the 4 shows in the lead picture are available in UHD on Netflix. There is quite a bit of 4k content available between Netflix, Amazon prime, Youtube and others. The future is NOW and it is a glorious experience.
@tehgnomearmy …..it’s not even actual 4K….
The Nvidia Shield is a nice bit of kit, but Android TV is a dead platform. If you want the largest range of streaming apps and 4K support, Roku is the only choice.
Just curious – what are the killer apps for roku that aren’t available on Apple TV? I own a roku 2 and I don’t use it for anything more than Netflix.
You don’t actually need any of those set top boxes if you just want to stream content. I have a 2015 Samsung 4K Smart TV and it has apps for all the streaming services. There actually are hundreds of apps out for the Samsung Tizen based Smart TVs, which makes sense due to the fact that Samsung is the top dog of the TV world.
I can only comment from a UK perspective. We have 4 core local streaming services here, one from each of the main TV broadcasters, They’re all on the Roku, whilst none are on the Apple TV. That makes the Apple TV a seriously hard sell here. Even the Fire TV only has two of those four core services, but at least that’s always had Amazon Video to hang its hat on.
Holy shit this nonsense about 4K has to stop. It’s pathetic. Nobody cares about 4K yet. It is still years away from being mainstreamed in terms of content.
It’s becoming rather difficult to buy all but budget TVs at anything other than 4K now. It is going to become the new standard, like it or not. Of course many people will never know or even care if they’re watching 4K or 1080p, but the TVs will be in people’s homes.
@Inaba-kun
It became difficult to buy a TV with 3D but it didn’t mean it took off. 4k itself really isn’t all that as very few people sit close enough to really notice, its the other things such as HFR that really make 4k something to shout about but those aren’t supported by most of the TV’s on the market and are still evolving. And the content until 4k Bluray is still very much crippled 4k, yes streaming 4k is a better visual experience than streaming 1080p but 1080p bluray still generally offers a much more rewarding image even at the lower resolution.
As PMZanetti said its still a fair bit away from being a worthwhile format, it may get there but there is just as much chance that we will pretty much skip over 4k and end up at 8k instead. Those jumping in now are likely to find either way that they are part of the early adopters club with equipment thats not actually fully compatible with whatever standard does reach a mature mainstream level
“Holy shit this nonsense about 4K has to stop. It’s pathetic. Nobody cares about 4K yet.”
Meanwhile, in other news, PMZanetti creams his pants over 3D Touch (which no-one cares about), the iPad Pro (which no-one cares about), ApplePay (which no-one cares about), Thunderbolt (which no-one cares about) etc etc ad infinitum.
Fact of the matter is -people do care about 4k – but because Apple don’t you automatically think the rest of the worlds population don’t.
And you call others pathetic?
I seriously feel bad for anybody that takes your recommendations on anything.
4K is bullshit at this point in time. I have a Sony 4K tv. Since most of the newer films are being recorded in 4K format, the original content just flat out looks better even when it’s downsized to 1080p. And my Sony 4K tv does an AWESOME job of upscaling that content. I’ll gladly take the Apple TV this way versus struggling with buffering on the bandwidth for 4K content. I’ve seen 4K content and it does look stellar. But the 1080p upscaled content looks pretty damn good too!
With isp data caps and state of broadband in the US 4K streaming won’t be a good expirence for some time. The content is highly limited. Netflix has a handful of shows and documentaries. Movies still come on hard drives with some 4K sets. There is no 4K blurays yet. 4K is the future but needs a few more years.
Also based on distance from you TV often 4K offers no benefit of standard HD.
I. So ducking tired of all the as low s clamioring for something that is not ready for today. Even when it is ready 4K is not that supreme of experience of regular HD.
The vast majority of CATV video is sourced at 720p or less.
And all 4K stream services have such high lossy compression that the image is worse than 1080p.
So far, 4K is a bust. Just like 3D.
Maybe it will be different when ISPs up their caps on the customer side and the distribution side. But I doubt they will within the next 10 years.
There is a lot of talk for the 4k thing. In my room, I have like, a 28′ flat screen TV. I really can not go bigger. So, to me, 4K is not something I worry about. I say, wait at least five years. If 4k is even still a thing, it will either become more meaningful or already have a newer, better thing.
I can’t imagine 4k going away anytime soon. For bandwidth purposes, surely there won’t be a higher “k” in the future. I never liked the “3D” craze, so I’m glad to see that slowly dying away.
Japan has had 8K ready to go for years.
“one notably missing app has been Amazon Video”
Well there are rather a lot of notable omissions in every country not called America. Here in the UK the ATV is currently missing *every* UK catch up service.
Much work to be done.
Well iPlayer, 4OD and ITV have all announced app development, and all currently offer AirPlay to the Apple TV anyway – the new box is a no brainier and wipes the floor with the competition. Unlike others here I’ve actually bought one and it’s great. Not perfect, but I can see the potential and it’s a massive step up from the three. Pepole need to understand that it’s for the content distributors to develop their own apps and submit – Apple have provided the platform, it’s for Amazon etc. to step up. Looks like they all are – and it’s takes about ten minutes to ‘move’ from the UK to the USA using something like unotelly. Currently enjoying US Netflix, HBO, NBC, SHO and the US iTunes library for less than half of my previous cable subscription.
If ITV, channel 4, and channel 5 have announced app decelopment for the Apple TV I’d like to see links to prove it. I emailed them all recently and they all replied to say they had no plans for Apple TV dev.
AirPlay is a joke. I’ve tried it a few times and the experience is utterly miserable. With All4 it usually loses the connection between adverts. With iPlayerit randomly drops the connection, and does it so frequently as to be pointless, plus iPlayer on the iPad isn’t even in HD. I also tried it with Amazon, which held the connection but lacked 5.1 audio. It’s a total waste of space. It’s also utterly absurd to require two devices just to stream something to my TV.
Content is king, and Roku have far more content than anyone else. Therefore, they wipe the floor with the competition. Maybe that will change in 6 months, or 12, or 24, or never. You also need to ask yourself how Amazon and Roku were able to launch with UK providers on board from day one. Deals will have been made, money changed hands.
Personally I’ve no interest in spoofing my IP to pretend to be in America.
Thank god! I may actually buy one now. Not on amazon of course ;)
I’ve been emailing “jeff@amazon.com” (which gets answered by a weekly since they took the old Apple TV and Chromecast “off their shelves” – They alluded that they were “investigating” a tvOS app. This seems like a bit further along than investigating (then again, from what I’ve read, seems like if you already have an iOS app, it is a quick port.
Screw 4k, it uses more data > companies may rise in price of plan
If a restaurant gives free wifi but a lot of people uses it watch 4K videos, there will be hardly access to the Internet and people complain, restaurants will remove free wifi!
4K on Netflix and Amazon uses 16mbit and uses the next gen HEVC h265. The quality isnt perfect but it blows 1080p out of the water. 16mbit is easily within most of the broadband speeds in major metro areas. Once the bitrates for content double we will get 10bit color as well as higher framerates, though I dont think we will see that for the next 2 years or so.
So Amazon blocks sales of Apple TV on its online marketplace, but will happily let people use its paid service on the device. Gotcha
Which is precisely why I’m not buying this rumor. We have some blogger’s anecdote and absolutely NOTHING official from Amazon, yet the Mac centric news sites are plastering this all over their front pages as if it’s a done deal. Wishful thinking is my opinion. There has been hope for an Amazon app for years now and it has become an embarrassment to some. Netflix could make apps for the 2nd and 3rd gen ATVs but Amazon claims they couldn’t get one to work properly and therefore banned the sale of those devices in their store? That’s about a s big a pile of bullshit I’ve ever seen online. Now there’s RUMOR that an Amazon app is coming for the ATV4? Yeah, right, and Santa Claus is real too.
I get what you are saying, but if a decent amount of people have already contacted Amazon, expressing their opinion, stating knowledgeable points (such as the relative ease of converting their iOS app), as well as doing little things like turning off auto-renew of Prime, it will make a difference. Take me for example. I have people in my family that call me from a store and ask “how much is this on Amazon?” before buying something. Then ask is ill buy it and ship it to them. They pay me back. Anything I find online? First thing I do is check Amazon. If it’s within a few bucks? Amazon is getting my business. I bet I spend 50-75% more annually since joining prime than I did before. If I am the typical user, and thousands of people like me are threatening to leave? That makes a difference. Especially since Amazon ultimately offers these things to add value to prime to get you to spend more.
I found that Apple TV would “mess up” my iphone projection(amazon prime tv) to my TV about every 10 minutes – I called Amazon who gave me a fix…
it didn’t work… Apple Sabotaged the fix…. finally last week I added Amazon Stick to one of my 4 TV’s and was able to watch “Suits” 4 seasons for free.
In essence, Apple was marketing Amazon TV as an “Addon” to their unnecessary avoidance of Amazon.
Thats odd, works perfectly for me. The remote even controls playback while airplaying from my iPad. Just enjoyed man in the high castle. :) what did Apple ‘sabotage’? Lol
I don’t use an iPhone for AirPlay. I use my iPhone as my remote control (works great).
I use AirPlay on an iPad for Amazon and it works very well once I set the iPad to not go to sleep.
(I also enjoyed The Man in the High Castle.)
First tier service reps are notoriously misinformed. Then add to that the fact they are under extreme pressure to handle a quota number of calls per hour and will say almost anything to get the customer to complete the call.
Nope, I’m not buying this at all. I expect to read an official denial from Amazon shortly.
Surprised at the amount of complaints regarding 4K. No one I know has a 4K TV. There is practically no 4K content. Certainly it is a “nice to have” but not a must have, here in the UK. I certainly have never felt like I was missing out by “only” having an HD TV. And the Apple TV is so cheap (by Apple’s standard) that getting one now, then having to buy another in two or three years with a faster processor and 4K support doesn’t seem like a big deal.
4K looks amazing at 3 feet away; it looks slightly better when paused at about 5-6 feet away. On the sofa (about 8 feet away in my house), it looks exactly the same as the same as the 1080 55″ set. Actuallym the 1080p set looks better, but that’s because has better black levels.
I’m happy about Amazon, but only if it’s easy to find Prime video.
And why doesn’t Time Warner offer its TWC TV app for the Apple TV? They make it available for the iphone, the iPad, Roku and Amazon fire and even some Samsung smart TVs.
I have an amazon prime account – the stick allows me to access prime videos, rentals, and to own digital copies from amazon – as well as accessing hulu, netflix, and youtube — i live in japan and paid 2000yen – my version of the stick is also compatible in the UK… This is a lot cheaper than the 20,000yen starting price for apple…
I think if apple were to have a TV/Movie subscription, like they do with music, then it would make the apple TV more tempting … For people who have 37″ or less sized TV, 4K is really not necessary — and if you really want to view this as streaming content you will need a strong wifi signal and fast internet with a good data plan… many have a fair use policy, especially in the UK, that limit you to 20-40gb a month (depending on your provider)…
Also, 4K content will take up a long of data – bear in mind a 1080 movie is usually around 6-8gb (if compressed, maybe around 3-4gb)…a 4K movie can be around 14gb…
For television broadcast 4K is doable…although often it’s more 2K that is transmitted…
I honestly don’t think streaming sites are fully ready for 4K, and certainly most internet providers are not… having a 4K is great, but they are still very expensive and we are still several years away before it will become adopted — even some video games are still 720, never mind 1080.
So in short – apple TV is still very over priced for what it is, especially considering the games are so-so (at the moment) and they offer no video service of their own (you have to buy or rent…which is often more than other services)…4K is not essential at the moment, but at least by adding it it will make the box a bit more future proof…but they also dont have expandable card slot for SD/microSD — a must for downloading content…
Compared to whats on the market – apple need to knock a 1/3 of their asking price though
This would be *fantastic* but given how far Amazon has been willing to go to push their Fire TV sticks / boxes I highly doubt this. Sounds like a low level help desk dude trying to get off the phone.
It’s been 4 weeks. I wonder where this is in the process?
It’s March 2016. Still no Amazon on my Apple TV 4. I’m not happy.
Anyone heard anything new regarding Amazon Video for tvOS? The last posting here was 5 moths ago.
Can we please have an update on this app. Will be awesome to use this.
If it’s not publicly ready, how can I join the beta programme.