Google and Apple now both have open SDK's for creating streaming apps for their devices. Isn't the the fact these devices don't "interact well with Prime Video" entirely Amazon's fault?
And even on iOS, Amazon still has video apps, they just don't allow you to buy or rent directly within the app: https://itunes.apple.com/app/amazon-video/id545519333
There's nothing stopping Amazon from supporting Apple TV or Chromecast, except itself.
Chromecast doesn't have any special connection to Google Play. Anyone can cast whatever they want. Amazon Prime Instant Video can already be cast, but the user experience is so bad that you probably don't want to.
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Well, sure, you pay Google for the device -- that's fairly direct monetization.
And it increases the utility of (and thus the demand for) content from and subscriptions to Google's audio/video services (whose mobile apps all support Chromecast), so its monetized indirectly that way.
Other than that, its adoption drives app developer adoption and user familiarity for Google Cast, which, aside from its use in Chromecast, is a key feature of Android TV, which Google monetizes not just by selling hardware direct to consumers, but also via its cut of apps in the Play Store, and by (presumably) getting paid by Smart TV manufacturers to use Android TV as their Smart TV OS.
It probably leverages Android in some fashion also, though good iOS apps have chrome cast support as well.
It must be another reason... But what?
Apple's refusal to even allow links to external stores is petty and obnoxious, but Amazon is essentially playing the same game: if you won't let us play the way we want, we're going to make life difficult for our own customers while clutching our pearls and telling everyone that you made us do it.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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?
There are no technical or legal barriers preventing Amazon from supporting iOS and Android devices.
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.)
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.
This is why Apple worked with Netflix, HBO, etc to get apps on the Apple TV even before the TVOS was ready.
They've even gone so far as to present options when looking at a movie in their store on the new hardware and OS so you know what other services offer it.
I'm guessing Amazon will be removed from this list immediately.
The "free" prime streaming seems to just be a marketing tool for getting you into their video-buying app. I'd be surprised if they have much interest in streaming anywhere where they can't push paid videos without having someone else take a cut.