Compared to Netflix, Disney Plus and other major streaming services, Prime Video has never been the most sleek or intuitive app. Its user experience doesn’t have the polish of these competitors and it feels more cobblestone. There are good aspects of what’s out there, such as the long-lasting X-ray feature that shows information about the cast and other trivial facts whenever the content is paused. But Prime Video has not received a significant overhaul or rethink in many years.
Finally, that changes today. From now on, over the next two weeks, Amazon will launch a new Prime Video experience for Android and connected living room devices, including smart TVs, Fire TV streaming hardware, Roku, Apple TV, Android TV and game consoles. Amazon says the experience has been designed to be “less busy and overwhelming for our customers.” The result, frankly, is something that looks a lot like Netflix. And maybe that’s the best part.
All streaming playback apps look the same now. Images: Amazon / Netflix, GIF: Chris Welch / The Verge
Prime Video’s main navigation has shifted to the left side of the screen and is now a vertical column of icons. These six main areas are Search, Home, Shop, Live TV, Free and My Things. The Home section has subsections for movies, TV shows, and sports. And the store has similar submenus for Prime channels (also known as subscriptions), rentals / purchases, and deals.
There’s now a list of the top 10 on the home screen so you can easily reference what’s popular, and the new Prime Video is much clearer about what entertainment is included with your Prime subscription. These programs and movies are marked with a blue check mark in the description, while content that requires a rental or purchase will have a gold shopping bag icon. This is cleaner than adding a badge to every piece of TV show or movie artwork like Amazon did before, though that means you’ll have to explore the lists a bit to see what it is.
The new Prime Video is designed to feel less messy. Image: Amazon It’s easier to find out what content your Amazon Prime subscription includes. Image: Amazon
As you navigate, you’ll find that many of the carousels retain the same landscape artwork as before. But Prime Video has also introduced what they call “super carousels,” with art portrayed in poster-style that expands into a video preview as you hover your cursor over a selection. Again, stop me if you’ve seen this concept elsewhere.
The redesign of Prime Video has been an 18-month project. As it approaches the finish line, the new experience has been overseen by Ben Smith, who is now Amazon’s vice president of product for Prime Video and Prime Studios. Smith is the same executive who led the radical redesign of Hulu in 2017. In retrospect, Hulu tried to reinvent the user interface and moved too far in a new direction. Customers quickly expressed their grievances and the company spent many months monitoring some of the changes and returning to what was familiar.
In comparison, the redesign of Prime Video is deliberate, calculated, and, as the parallels with Netflix, HBO Max, and Disney Plus show, is far less bold. Amazon did extensive usability testing and user research, and found that people generally accepted the changes very quickly. Given the growing similarity between all of these apps, this isn’t very surprising.
Sports have a bigger focus on the new Prime Video. Image: Amazon The Live TV section highlights Prime’s live events and Paramount Plus ’linear programming and other subscriptions. Image: Amazon
In some cases, the goal was to better highlight the underutilized advantages of Prime Video. The new dedicated live TV center offers a guide that brings together the linear programming of channel subscriptions such as AMC Plus and Paramount Plus, as well as exclusive Prime live sports events and free advertising content for everyone. This interface is already available on the web, but it’s likely to be used a lot more now that it’s getting so much exposure in the Prime Video app. “In usability testing, we repeatedly heard the phrase,‘ hey, I didn’t even know Prime Video had live TV, ’” product director Helena Cerna said during a recent press preview.
Prime Video has a new layer of paint and design, but there are still popular features like multi-user profiles, X-Ray and Alexa integration. As before, you’ll see quite a bit of promoted content and Amazon is still trying to boost subscriptions for third-party content to customers, just as there are rumors about HBO that could get back into the fight.
There have also been some annoyances: Prime Video still features TV seasons in weird ways (episode 0: trailer, anyone?) And can sometimes separate the 4K and HD versions of the same movie. Some of these outrageous organization choices are due to the fact that Amazon still sells a lot of this content, while competitors only have to worry about letting it play.
Prime channels (subscriptions) are a focal point of the new experience. Image: Amazon
Following this initial phase of the release, the new Prime Video design will hit iOS and the web in the coming months. However, not all hardware will be able to run the redesigned experience. The 2012 PlayStation 3 and third-generation Apple TV, for example, will not be upgraded. In cases where devices do not receive the new version, they will stay with what they currently have and will continue to provide access to Prime Video in the future.
The next few weeks will be a good test for the new Prime experience, with The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power and NFL Thursday Night Football both released in September. Amazon plans to continue iterating the new design based on customer feedback.