Mikey Campbell
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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Wesley Hilliard
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76 Comments
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 :)
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.
Awesome
Good. I'm really into "The Man in the High Castle." Would be great to stream those through my AppleTV (sans unreliable AirPlay).
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.