UK viewers are getting a host of new ways to stream their favourite content, after Amazon announced its Prime Video streaming service was finally coming to Sky Q boxes as well as Now TV streaming sticks.
Amazon Prime Video titles will now feature on the Sky Q Home page, with "even more Prime Video integration, such as voice search for TV series, movies and more" coming in 2021.
But that's not all: the Now TV app is also returning the favour, coming to Fire TV devices including the Fire TV Stick Lite, Fire TV Stick (2020), and Fire TV Stick 4K.
Now TV is a UK-specific streaming service that is carried by a number of smart TV ranges as well as the Now TV Smart Stick, and is marked out from the competition by hosting a huge number of TV series from HBO in the US (including Watchmen, Succession, and Euphoria).
Most of our complaints around streaming device software is around the glaring lack of particular apps, whether that's Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, or YouTube. It can be a real headache for viewers expecting to be able to watch whatever they want on their respective streaming device, and this feels like a welcome and pretty customer-friendly move on all sides.
The apps will be arriving on their respective partner platforms from December 14, and rolling out across Europe – but ostensibly the UK, Ireland, Austria, Germany and Italy. As ever, you will need subscriptions to these respective streaming services to access them on any device.
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Changes are afoot
It's not all that's new with Amazon Fire TV devices, though. The manufacturer has begun rolling out an updated UI for Fire TV streaming sticks, adding user profiles as well as reportedly slimming down the interface for easier use.
After the update is installed, Amazon Fire TV will allow you to have up to six profiles per account that each have their own personalized recommendations and watch lists.
The other key part of the update focuses on how the platform recommends new shows and movies – which it now does through the “Find” and “Live” tabs on the home screen. The Find section will collect movies, shows and app recommendations from various sources and collect them together in like groups, while the Live tab shows what’s live right now.
The new UI is set to come to higher-cost devices like the Fire TV Cube and Toshiba Fire TV later down the line in 2021, too.
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