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I guess the question is whether those SDKs provide everything Amazon needs. And, are there no legal restrictions that affect Amazon either. Overall the article

by azakai 11y ago

I guess the question is whether those SDKs provide everything Amazon needs. And, are there no legal restrictions that affect Amazon either. Overall the article just says Prime "doesn't work well" on those devices, but does work well on others. It doesn't say why. At this point it's hard to say who's to blame. It would have been nice if the article had investigated the issue.

MCRed 11y ago
The biggest streaming competitor to iTunes in the video space has got to be Netflix. And Netflix as well as HBO, Showtime, and many networks have had apps on iOS for many years, and AppleTV for a couple years (and presumably with the bar limiting the number of AppleTV Apps going away this fall, there will be an explosion of such Apps.) I don't think you can say Apple is to blame (or Google, though the google situation I can't speak as clearly to because I don't know the technical details there.)
yohui 11y ago
Amazon Instant Video is available on Sony TVs running Android TVs, but Amazon disables the app from working on non-Sony TVs: http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/05/16/amazon-disables-the-instant-video-apk-for-non-sony-android-tv-devices-because-they-hate-you-and-your-money/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/05/16/amazon-disables-the-... Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Crunchyroll, etc. all support Chromecast. It would be extremely easy for Amazon to support it, if they wanted to.
- azakai 11y ago
  Are you saying that the article is wrong when it says that Amazon video worked, but poorly, on non-Sony TVs?
  - yohui 11y ago
    Are we referring to the same article? The Android Police article linked above reports that Amazon blocked users who tried to run the app on non-Sony TVs: > But now it doesn't work. "License Error" codes have started showing up when running the Instant Video app on the Nexus Player, presumably because someone at Amazon saw that it was running on non-blessed hardware and shut it down.
    - azakai 11y ago
      I meant the original article this entire discussion is about, which says > Amazon’s streaming service, called Prime Video, doesn’t run easily on its rival’s hardware. So it does run, at least according to the article. But it's either hard to make it run, or it doesn't work well. Both of those seem to contradict your link. Very puzzling, I guess one of those must be wrong?
      - yohui 11y ago
        Assuming Bloomberg didn't just fudge the phrasing, they were probably referring to how Amazon Video requires the Amazon Appstore to be installed first: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/splash/sd/t/appstore https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/splash/sd/t/appstore There are no technical or legal barriers preventing Amazon from supporting iOS and Android devices.
        azakai 11y ago
        Ok, thanks, I was confused by how they phrased it.
knexer 11y ago
Does the Cast SDK depend on google play services? If so, that's got a pretty spotty technical record on their Fire devices, and I don't think Amazon is allowed to redistribute it anyways. Might be they don't want to implement Chromecast support for every platform except their own.
- andybak 11y ago
  If it did - how would it work on iOS?
  - firloop 11y ago
    My understanding is that to implement the Cast SDK in an Android or iOS app, one must link a closed source binary. On Android, it's Google Play Services, while on iOS it's a custom Cast binary that Google provides to developers to link in their apps. Due to this, almost all apps that support Cast are on iOS, Android, or Chrome because closed-source binaries are only distributed for those platforms. Amazon would have to make special arrangements to include the Cast SDK on Fire OS. I still don't think this excuses them from bringing a proper Amazon Prime Video app with Cast support to iOS and (Google's) Android.

by azakai 11y ago

MCRed 11y ago

The biggest streaming competitor to iTunes in the video space has got to be Netflix. And Netflix as well as HBO, Showtime, and many networks have had apps on iOS for many years, and AppleTV for a couple years (and presumably with the bar limiting the number of AppleTV Apps going away this fall, there will be an explosion of such Apps.) I don't think you can say Apple is to blame (or Google, though the google situation I can't speak as clearly to because I don't know the technical details there.)

yohui 11y ago

Amazon Instant Video is available on Sony TVs running Android TVs, but Amazon disables the app from working on non-Sony TVs: http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/05/16/amazon-disables-the-instant-video-apk-for-non-sony-android-tv-devices-because-they-hate-you-and-your-money/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/05/16/amazon-disables-the-... Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Crunchyroll, etc. all support Chromecast. It would be extremely easy for Amazon to support it, if they wanted to.

azakai 11y ago
Are you saying that the article is wrong when it says that Amazon video worked, but poorly, on non-Sony TVs?
- yohui 11y ago
  Are we referring to the same article? The Android Police article linked above reports that Amazon blocked users who tried to run the app on non-Sony TVs: > But now it doesn't work. "License Error" codes have started showing up when running the Instant Video app on the Nexus Player, presumably because someone at Amazon saw that it was running on non-blessed hardware and shut it down.
  - azakai 11y ago
    I meant the original article this entire discussion is about, which says > Amazon’s streaming service, called Prime Video, doesn’t run easily on its rival’s hardware. So it does run, at least according to the article. But it's either hard to make it run, or it doesn't work well. Both of those seem to contradict your link. Very puzzling, I guess one of those must be wrong?
    - yohui 11y ago
      Assuming Bloomberg didn't just fudge the phrasing, they were probably referring to how Amazon Video requires the Amazon Appstore to be installed first: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/splash/sd/t/appstore https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/splash/sd/t/appstore There are no technical or legal barriers preventing Amazon from supporting iOS and Android devices.
      - azakai 11y ago
        Ok, thanks, I was confused by how they phrased it.

knexer 11y ago

Does the Cast SDK depend on google play services? If so, that's got a pretty spotty technical record on their Fire devices, and I don't think Amazon is allowed to redistribute it anyways. Might be they don't want to implement Chromecast support for every platform except their own.

andybak 11y ago
If it did - how would it work on iOS?
- firloop 11y ago
  My understanding is that to implement the Cast SDK in an Android or iOS app, one must link a closed source binary. On Android, it's Google Play Services, while on iOS it's a custom Cast binary that Google provides to developers to link in their apps. Due to this, almost all apps that support Cast are on iOS, Android, or Chrome because closed-source binaries are only distributed for those platforms. Amazon would have to make special arrangements to include the Cast SDK on Fire OS. I still don't think this excuses them from bringing a proper Amazon Prime Video app with Cast support to iOS and (Google's) Android.