Neil Hughes
In exchange for Apple bringing the Amazon Prime Video app to tvOS, Amazon will reportedly return the favor and begin sales of the Apple TV hardware via its online storefront, and the changes could come as soon as next month's WWDC.
Citing unnamed sources, John Paczkowski of Buzzfeed reported on Thursday that the Amazon Prime streaming video service will, in fact, come to the tvOS App Store this summer. The partnership is expected to be announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on June 5.
Word of Amazon Prime Video coming to Apple TV first leaked last week, in a report that said Amazon and Apple were close to finalizing a deal. Until now, Apple users wanting to watch Amazon Prime Video and other streaming content have needed to rely on Amazon's iOS app, which includes AirPlay support.
A dedicated tvOS app will allow users to navigate to Amazon content directly from the Apple TV, and could even integrate with services like Siri.
In exchange, Amazon will reportedly begin selling the Apple TV in its online store once again. The Apple TV was pulled from Amazon.com in October of 2015, along with Google's Chromecast hardware, citing potential customer confusion over which streaming devices support Amazon Prime Video.
While Amazon Prime Video has been a conspicuous absence from tvOS, the online retailer has been happy to sell customers its own Fire TV streaming devices, which compete with the Apple TV.
A year ago, Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said Prime Video would remain off of devices that compete with its own Fire TV products until an acceptable financial model could be agreed upon. It's unclear what, exactly, bridged the gap between Apple and Amazon to mend their differences.
Amazon has made a name for itself in the original content business, winning an Emmy in 2015 for its show "Transparent," starring Jeffrey Tambor. The online retailer has also expanded into film, distributing the film "Manchester by the Sea" under its Amazon Studios business last year. The Casey Affleck movie won Oscars for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay.
AppleInsider Staff
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
39 Comments
Well there is no better stage in the world to get your App announced than at WWDC, so I'm sure that played into the negotiation.
Yea! At Christmas time when visiting relatives, I had brought my AppleTV along but couldn't watch an Amazon video directly. Had to mirror my laptop which sometimes drops out.
Would like to be a fly on the wall to find out what kind of deal Bezos and Cook worked out. The first sentence of this article implies that it was Apple who banned the Prime App first and Amazon responded by banning sales of the Apple TV. Is that true or is AppleInsider full of hot air? As for theories about Apple’s App Store hosting prices (30% cut and so forth) that doesn’t hold water because an iOS app has existed all this time, just not on the Apple TV. Some professional journalist should dig deep on this ands find out what’s really going on.
I've mentioned before, but I hope that there is an "app" for the ATV3 as well.
I think it's pretty clear that Amazon pulled the device and tried to push Fire device sales.