Hacker News Reader

Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

I'm a Prime subscriber but can't watch Prime videos (TV and movies) on my regular Android device, although if I had an Amazon Kindle device I could watch them there. (And Kindle devices are an Amazon fork of Android, thus benefiting from Google's work.)

This is so weird and dumb it's unbelievable. There is an Amazon Video app for iPhone and iPad why are they not supporting Android?

There is one for Roku but they have been dragging their feet with supporting the AppleTV even though they promised one "by the end of the year".

They support AirPlay to AppleTV but not ChromeCast.

View on HN

There is an Android App, just not in Play Store.

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-com-Amazon-Prime-Video/dp/B00N...

Edit: it is on Play Store apparently. Might changed recently

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amazon.avo...

I watch fine on my Motorola phone, not sure what they are talking about. Prime Video is well supported on regular Android phones.

When I last had an Android phone, the Prime Video app wasn’t available in the Play Store... you had to side load Amazon’s App Store app in order to download it. Pretty much a giant annoyance.

Annoying but doable and much easier than rooting

It's in the Play Store on my S8. Wonder what's going on here...

It was released earlier this year.

Even with the Prime Video app it does not let you Chromecast which is like :-\

To go a step further, Amazon no longer allows one to buy a Chromecast on Amazon.com. This alone makes me mad at Amazon.

And the reason they used to give is that "Chromecast doesn't support Amazon Prime Video and that's confusing for users" - well guess whose decision that was?

That's misleading to say the best! It's clearly the other way round and should be told that way.

Same thing with the Apple TV. And they apparently said that Apple wouldn't let their app into the store which is BS, since they already have an app for Prime Video for iOS.

Amazon also has a weird bureaucracy regarding where they ship to/from their Amazon Fire devices

the "standard" one just ships to certain countries, the "basic" one only ships from certain places to certain other places

Plus when you search for a Chromecast you get a Fire stick. Amazon is in the wrong here and glad to see Google push back.

While it doesn't support streaming the video directly to a Chromecast, if you don't mind burning your battery you can stream the whole screen of the device to the Chromecast.

You cannot any more. There is some kind of piracy protection that prevents it. I tried streaming the marvelous Mrs maisel to Chromecast via fullscreen recently and you can't see any video when you do, only audio.

The Prime Video for Android app is really young, it released literally 3 months ago.

I've had a Prime Video app on my Android devices for years...

sigh The app itself isn't even remotely new. The only new part is that it's listed on Google's app store as well as Amazon's.

It has been in Play Store for at least a year, but it was georestricted - not available in US.

I installed it from there on my devices when Prime Video launched worldwide in Dec 2016.

The app itself has been available (in US,UK, and DE) since September 2014, though [1]. And that was the purpose of my original reply, since B-Con said "The Prime Video for Android app is really young, it released literally 3 months ago."

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2014/09/09/amazon-brings-prime-instan...

The app isn't that recent, it just only was made available on the Play Store; it used to be exclusive to the Amazon App Store, which had to be sideloaded.

They are supporting android. There is an Amazon Video app for android. You just have to use the 'Amazon Underground' app to install it. I use it all of the time.

Well they cut it close but they did finally release an app for the AppleTV "by the end of the year"

https://sixcolors.com/post/2017/12/amazon-prime-video-now-av...

I have an nvidia shield and have the amazon prime app, it works fine, though it took a while to get 4k support.

So there is at least an amazon video app on android in general, if it can't be on the google store I don't know.

That's a special deal they have with Nvidia for that particular device.

I've had Amazon video and music apps on my Android devices ever since I got prime, and they've worked without a problem. I mean, aside from not working with chromecast (but I don't do that often anyhow).

Maybe they've got a deal with Amazon to pre-load the app? I did sideload the Amazon app store.

Each Android TV OEM has to have a separate agreement to permit use of the app. So far only Sony and Nvidia have done so. The sideloaded version doesn't work on other devices.

Ah, so you're just talking about Android TV devices? I thought that the Shield was a kind of portable game system, and that it might obey the same "rules" as phones do.

Probably weird posturing...

The iOS app works, but you can't purchase from it (I speculate because Apple would get a cut). Same goes for the Kindle app.

here it is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amazon.avo...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com