Amazon has updated its Prime Video app on Apple TV with much-needed improvements, making it feel less clunky and more like a proper tvOS app.
The updated software lets you scroll smoother with your Siri Remote, making the interface more fluid. You can now search with your voice, take advantage of new touchpad gestures and use the seek feature to skim through videos.
With automatic updates turned on in the Apple TV settings, you’ll get the latest version of the Prime Video app automatically. Otherwise, open the App Store app from the Home Screen of your Apple TV, use the search function to get to the Prime Video page, and click the Update button to get the latest experience right now.
Prime Video for Apple TV gets new features
Amazon says anyone using Prime Video on their Apple TV will be able to scroll faster through content using common Siri Remote gestures like swiping. And to fast forward and rewind shows in the video player, you can now swipe to a desired playback point. In-app search now populates search results as you type each letter. And with support for dictation, you can use your voice to search.
“For an even more cinematic experience, users can now enjoy sound effects when swiping through content and features like the parallax effect for added visual depth,” Amazon said. Poster artwork should look crisper thanks to higher-resolution images used to represent movies and TV shows. Plus, Prime Video for Apple TV now supports Apple’s accessibility features like VoiceOver, Hover Text and Bold Text.
Prime Video is available for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Vision Pro in the App Store. The tvOS app is available for the Apple TV HD and Apple all TV 4K models. The software can be downloaded for free from the App Store.
The iPhone and iPad app requires iOS 15.0 or later, the Mac app requires macOS 12.0 or later, the Apple TV version requires tvOS 18.2 or later, while Prime Video for Vision Pro requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
A rocky launch
Amazon debuted the Prime Video tvOS app in December 2017. We went hands-on with the app and came away disappointed. Despite the familiar interface, the app has never felt like a good citizen on the tvOS platform. It was a bad port of the Prime Video app for iPhone or iPad which felt desperately outdated on tvOS.
Amazon has since updated the app multiple times to fix some of the annoyances and add new features. Realizing Apple TV owners do not like the fact that the app behaves like Prime Video’s HTML5 web view deployed on smart TV platforms, Amazon pushed a redesigned Prime Video Apple TV app in August 2022. The redesign made the app much better and easier to navigate than before.