Amazon Instant Video Now Available On Android

briancox2 writes Amazon has avoided releasing the Amazon Instant Video app that is on Fire and Kindle to the general Android market, even though the app has been available for some time on iOS. Now, after a workaround had allowed some users to install the app on Android by fiddling with permissions, Amazon has released the app to many devices calling it "Amazon Instant Video for Google TV". It's not clear yet which devices can run this app. Currently it is not available for older Samsung Galaxy lines, however the Nexus, a major competitor of Amazon's devices, can run the new app.

Comments

Rather cumbersome

[mackil]

It's rather cumbersome, but it works. You can't install it straight from Google Play. You have to install the Amazon app and install it inside of that. They make you change the "unknown store" security setting in order to do it. Curious strategy on Amazon's part.

Now if only they would add ChromeCast support... I know, we customers are never happy.

Re:Rather cumbersome

[mackil]

Amazon isn't making you change the "unknown store" setting--that would be Google. Android OS is set to only accept Play Store unless you deactivate that setting.

Actually they are since they could've added the app to Google Play like they do for all their others. Kindle is there, as is the main Amazon App.

Re:Rather cumbersome

[tepples]

I'm guessing that if Amazon had added it to Google Play Store, rentals would have had to use Google payments where Google gets 30% instead of Amazon. That or it'd work only with Prime, not rentals.

Re:Rather cumbersome

[mackil]

I'm guessing that if Amazon had added it to Google Play Store, rentals would have had to use Google payments where Google gets 30% instead of Amazon. That or it'd work only with Prime, not rentals.

That is an excellent point. I hadn't thought of that. Like Microsoft's fight with Apple over their IOS Office app.

Re:Rather cumbersome

[tepples]

Google Play Store's generic "This app is incompatible with all of your devices." message is almost useless, as it doesn't help me choose my next device should I already be in the market for an upgrade.

Re:Rather cumbersome

[Zenin]

You failed to note the "Google TV" text all over that app's page.

That version is only usable on Google TV, not Android.

Re:Rather cumbersome

[DrXym]

I'm guessing that if Amazon had added it to Google Play Store, rentals would have had to use Google payments where Google gets 30% instead of Amazon. That or it'd work only with Prime, not rentals.

The requirement to use their payment system probably doesn't apply to Amazon. Their Play policy

has an exemption which says "where payment is for digital content or goods that may be consumed outside of the app itself (e.g., buying songs that can be played on other music players)". As long as Amazon lets rentals play through other apps then they're probably perfectly okay.

A more likely reason it hasn't appeared until now have been Amazon's own ambitions to run an app store and tablets/phones that are tied to it. They're holding back the goodies to make their own platform more attractive by comparison. Google did it with YouTube to Microsoft, Blackberry did it with BBM and so on.

Due to Fire Phone Flop?

[WiiVault]

I'm willing to bet they felt forced to do this in part thanks to the colossal failure of the Fire Phone. If estimates are accurate they have sold slightly under 50,000 units since launch which is abysmal. I think had the phone been a hit they would have maintained their strategy of keeping it off non Kindle Android. As a tablet owner I'm really glad the phone flopped if this is indeed the case.

Hate Amazon for this

[linuxguy]

I generally like Amazon. I am a Prime subscriber and I am supposed to be able to watch their Prime videos as well. However we're an Android family and do not have any iOS or Amazon devices. I have tried them, but I did not like them.

Netflix supports Android devices well. And I like them for it. Amazon is pulling these shenanigans in order to prop up support for their mostly uninteresting platform. Android has the largest market share and my family has 4 Android tablets and 4 Android phones. None of these devices can play Amazon instant video. Damn you Amazon!

Re:Hate Amazon for this

[tepples]

When you get home from work this evening, could you see how many of your eight devices this new app works on?

Re:video is OS specific.... why again?

[khellendros1984]

Or that the company that funded the video's production wants some assurance that a subscriber won't just tee a rental into a capture program and distribute it without charge to the public.

That's OK. Some clever person will have already figured it out for me. I don't know if they strip HDCP-protection from video and capture the stream, read it out of memory while decoding, decrypt DVR video files or what, but I've no video that I've ever looked for was actually protected by restrictive streaming requirements.

If the executives of a production company feel assurance that their stream can't be ripped in one way or another, then they're living in a fool's paradise.

For certain values of 'available', apparently.

[John Pfeiffer]

I've got five Android 4.x devices that run Netflix and Hulu and everything just fine, and Amazon STILL won't let me install their fucking app on ANY OF THEM. So much for 'releasing' it.

Paying for Prime and possibly buying videos apparently isn't enough. If I want to watch Amazon Instant Video on something other than a computer, I have to buy their overpriced gimped non-standard Android tablet?! (Or even worse, an iOS device!)

Last time I was this pissed at them, it was when they suddenly removed THE ENTIRETY of "How It's Made" from the stuff Prime members could watch for free, not long after I'd deleted all my HDTV caps of it off my network drive to save space.

Re:finally

[CaptainDork]

Says my Nexus 7 is not compatible.

Rats.

Re:Devices that dont work

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I somehow managed to install it on my old Transformer Prime TF101, and it works "fine" with hdmi video out to a 1080p monitor... by "fine" I've had a bit of buffering but I'm guessing that's just because it's new and they're getting hammered.

The shenanigans were dreadful, I had to install multiple amazon stores for the tablet, then the amazon app store, then the prime instant video player from the amazon app store, then it worked... amazon says android phones only, but the tablet works. *shrug*...

At last, I think I'll pay for prime for a bit and see if it works out for me, but the interface is horrendous, I primarily watch netflix and youtube using my TFP as a media centre (no TV here).

Re:Devices that dont work

[metrix007]

It's not something we could stop. I think the apk checks the devices and decides to install or not.

Really REALLY cumbersome.

[xigxag]

On my Note Pro:

1) I had to have the (orange) Amazon "apps" Appstore app.
2) From within that app, I had to download and install the Amazon App. The one that has the blue shopping cart. Couldn't use the Amazon App available in Google Play, it seemingly installed the video app, but in the end, none of the videos were available on my device.
3) From within the Amazon App, I had to download and install the Amazon Instant Video Player App.

Got it? The Instant Video Player App inside the Amazon App inside the Appstore app. Dead simple.

Re:Devices that dont work

[Solandri]

Netflix ran into the same issue with their app for Android. If their explanation is correct, then you can blame Hollywood. Supposedly the studios require a separate validation and certification on every different hardware platform. They want verification that the video stream has been tested to be secured via encryption so that it cannot be captured. Otherwise they withhold copyright permission to stream to that app. So the app producers have to create a whitelist of which hardware devices have been tested and certified, and only those devices are allowed to download and run the app.