Amazon brings shopping to big screen with new Apple TV app

The eponymous Amazon app appears to be a basic tvOS port of the company's iOS title, albeit with up-sized graphics and a tweaked user interface designed to work with Apple's Siri Remote.

Users can browse and search for products using Apple TV's dictation feature, as well as view images and videos, supplied by Amazon and supported merchants. With the usual assortment of customer services, including consumer reviews, shopping lists and links to related products, shoppers familiar with Amazon's iOS app will feel at home in the tvOS environment.

At launch, an Amazon Prime membership is required for purchasing items through the tvOS title. Users who sign in to their Amazon account can add items to a virtual cart for review and payment on another platform.

Unfortunately, the new tvOS app does not grant access to Amazon Prime Video content. Customers have been clamoring for an official Prime Video streaming app for years and hopes were rekindled when Apple announced the tvOS App Store alongside the fourth-generation Apple TV last year. However, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in May said Prime Video will remain inaccessible to Apple TV and other set-top streamers until the company can arrange "acceptable business terms" for release.

The Amazon app is a free 17.6MB download from the tvOS App Store.