By: Aseem Gaurav on August 2, 2012
Amazon has introduced an iPad app that lets you access the company’s ever-growing collection of movies and TV, but only if you’re already a paying member of Amazon Prime ($79/year). The app is pegged against similar services like Netflix and Hulu Plus.
The biggest beneficiary would be Amazon Prime customers with iPads as now they don’t have to buy Kindle Fire to avail company’s Instant Video service on a tablet.
Through this app, customers can access a vast range of prime movies and TV shows—up to 120,000 videos and many new movie releases – that can be instantly streamed or downloaded for later offline viewing.
But here’s a catch. You can’t buy videos from the Prime service directly from the new Amazon Instant Video app, or even search for the videos, rather payments have to be made through a Web browser on a laptop, PC. You then need to switch to the app to watch the video – an extra step as against purchasing movies from iPad’s native iTunes store. This is because Apple charges 30 percent of every in-app purchase.
Looks wise the app looks much like Kindle iOS app. There’s option to watch your library of purchased movie and TV content, and know what you have downloaded onto your device. On the main screen, you can browse longer lists in categories like "Featured in Prime Instant Video" and "Featured in Prime Instant Video: Kids." In addition you can watch list of videos saved to a "watch list." However, on the downside the app doesn’t allow you to watch content by genre.
Also just like iTunes, Amazon’s service also offers a TV Season Pass subscription option, which gives you the option to automatically download the TV shows to the iPad the day after they air.
The app is currently available only for iPad and it doesn’t stream to Apple TV at present.
Download the app here.
Amazon has introduced an iPad app that lets you access the company’s ever-growing collection of movies and TV, but only if you’re already a paying member of Amazon Prime ($79/year). The app is pegged against similar services like Netflix and Hulu Plus.
The biggest beneficiary would be Amazon Prime customers with iPads as now they don’t have to buy Kindle Fire to avail company’s Instant Video service on a tablet.
Through this app, customers can access a vast range of prime movies and TV shows—up to 120,000 videos and many new movie releases – that can be instantly streamed or downloaded for later offline viewing.
But here’s a catch. You can’t buy videos from the Prime service directly from the new Amazon Instant Video app, or even search for the videos, rather payments have to be made through a Web browser on a laptop, PC. You then need to switch to the app to watch the video – an extra step as against purchasing movies from iPad’s native iTunes store. This is because Apple charges 30 percent of every in-app purchase.
Looks wise the app looks much like Kindle iOS app. There’s option to watch your library of purchased movie and TV content, and know what you have downloaded onto your device. On the main screen, you can browse longer lists in categories like "Featured in Prime Instant Video" and "Featured in Prime Instant Video: Kids." In addition you can watch list of videos saved to a "watch list." However, on the downside the app doesn’t allow you to watch content by genre.
Also just like iTunes, Amazon’s service also offers a TV Season Pass subscription option, which gives you the option to automatically download the TV shows to the iPad the day after they air.
The app is currently available only for iPad and it doesn’t stream to Apple TV at present.
Download the app here.
