You still can’t watch Amazon Prime Video from your Apple TV, but you can now download an app in order to do some Amazon shopping from your television’s big screen. As to why you’d want to do such a thing, I couldn’t say. Maybe you left your phone in the other room?
In any event, Amazon has this week rolled out a new Apple TV application called “Amazon App: Browse, Search, and Shop.” As the name implies, the app lets you browse and search for products on Amazon’s site, and then buy them right from the TV.
When viewing individual products, you can read their description, get the product details, and flip through the product images, similar to Amazon on the web. The main screen of this new app also features collections curated by Amazon, like gift guides, which you can flip through for inspiration.
To find something specific, you can search for items by voice, thanks to Apple TV’s Siri remote, or you can type in searches with the on-screen keyboard.
However, purchasing items via the app is only available to Prime members. In addition, you can optionally set up a four-digit pin number for authorizing those purchases.
If you’re not a Prime member, you can instead add products to a list to view later when you’re back at your phone or computer, says Amazon.
While the app itself is probably not going to see heavy use – after all, the Apple TV isn’t really thought of as a shopping platform – it’s notable that Amazon considers the platform to be worthy of a dedicated application.