Amazon’s lack of a native Instant Video app provided a nice run for TeleRead. The two workaround articles to get Amazon Instant Video on your Android device have been our two best traffic drivers for more than a year. However, Amazon has finally done the right thing and released an app for Android.
It’s easy to install, although it’s not as straightforward as installing on iOS.
If you go to Google Play and search for Amazon Instant Video, you get the app for Google TV, not the app for your phone or tablet. What you do instead is download the Amazon App Store .apk, following the instructions on that page. Then you can search for the Amazon Instant Video in the App Store and install it.
Apparently, you can also install it (somewhat) directly from the Amazon app found in Google Play, but I couldn’t get that to work on my Nook HD running CM 11.
Which reminds me that I don’t think unrooted Nook HD tablets can install apps from unknown sources. You Nook owners may be out of luck on this one. Can someone verify this for me?
If, like me, you were hoping Amazon would add the ability to download Prime Instant videos, you can stop hoping. That’s still a Kindle Fire only feature.
Anyway, once I installed the app, video played quite smoothly and easily. This is obviously a huge improvement over the buggy workarounds we’ve been using until now.
Oh, and it gave us something to get excited about while we wait for the iPhone event. 🙂
It doesn’t work. It states you have to download the Amazon App for Android, which is just used to shop at Amazon.
Geez, that was painful.
You’re right, you have to install the Amazon app from the Amazon AppStore. Which means downloading the AppStore, then the Amazon App, and then finally VOD.
No, no–no ulterior motive here. You just have to go through our entire store to get to the goodies.
But it is working. Rah.
@Shelley, yes, it was painful. I was able to get it installed on my HTC phone by just downloading the Amazon app and then installing Instant Video from there, but when I went through what I thought were the same steps on my Nook HD, I couldn’t get it to work.
Seriously, could they have made it any less intuitive?
I tried it on a Nexus 7 (2013) and couldn’t get it to work. And on a Toshiba Thrive. Couldn’t get it to work there either.
“Which reminds me that I don’t think unrooted Nook HD tablets can install apps from unknown sources.”
They cannot.
But I have documented a solution for the Nook HD. It requires an app for the Nook app store and works in combination with the Dolphin browser workaround:
http://the-digital-reader.com/nates-reviews/stream-amazon-instant-videos-android-tablet/
“Anyway, once I installed the app, video played quite smoothly and easily. This is obviously a huge improvement over the buggy workarounds we’ve been using until now.”
Really? I’ve installed the apps and I think the workaround offers a higher quality stream and fewer crashes.
It was painful but I got it to work on 3 devices – a Samsung Galaxy Note 2, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 (7.0) and an HTC Evo 4G LTE. Not intuitive would be an understatement! Here is what I did on each device in the order I did them.
1. Download and install the Amazon Appstore APK using link above.
2. Download and install the Instant Video (AIV) APK from the Amazon Appstore.
–At this point I got a runaround where the AIV app would direct me to a website which asked for my email which sent me a link to that same website. Frustrating. Turns out the AIV app runs through the Amazon shopping app – for PHONES – and you have to have the most updated version from the Google Play store.–
3. Download and/or update and install the Amazon shopping app from the Google Play store, PHONE VERSION (the tablet version I have on my Tab3 does NOT work but the phone one does).
4. Opened the Amazon shopping app from Google Play and signed in.
5. Opened the AIV app from the Amazon apps store and bingo!
Playback works well on 2/3 of my devices. It is super fuzzy on my HTC Evo 4G LTE but that is still running 4.1, my other two devices have KitKat and it works great.
Once it’s installed it’s nice but a pain in the ass to get up and running. Why Amazon? Why not just make a nice app for the Google Play store like everybody else? With their very nice Roku and iPad apps this antipathy to Android confuses me.
It doesn’t work. It states you have to download the Amazon App for Android 2.4. What can I do now?
@ John,
Here is how I did it:
http://the-digital-reader.com/nates-reviews/stream-amazon-instant-videos-android-tablet/
I was able to get it working on my Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 by uninstalling the Amazon Store app for tablets that you get from Google Play ( I think the tablet app is actually what creates the problem since the phone app automatically has a “play video” option and automatically takes you to a sideload link for Amazon Instant Video). I installed the Amazon app store and from there downloaded the Amazon shopping app and the Instant Video app. It’s working though I haven’t actually watched anything yet to judge the quality or stability.
Hey guys,
I was trying to get it working with a 4.4 Sony Xperia Z Tablet and German Amazon.
Unfortunately I couldn’t get it to work, probably due to the Flash problems. Using dolphin I only get the “Install Silverlight” prompt and I can download a .dmg file …. useless.
If anyone finds a solution…. please share somewhere. Should this work with a VPN to foreign IP and try the US prime service? Or is my german subscription filtered otherwise?
Thanks,
der Tatortreiniger
@DerTatortreiniger, You’re trying the work around. This article is about an actual Amazon Instant app which doesn’t require the Dolphin work around. I believe the app is available in Germany.
Hi there,
thanks for the reply.
Yeah, the app amazon “Instand Video” is installed. But when I open it, I only get this: http://pl.vc/2m2gw (Cancel or Continue)
Continueing here brings me to amazon.com where it doesnt recognize my german subscription and I also cannot trial the 30 free days.
When using the amazon app, I can reach the video page, but it wont continue. Instead I recieve the following:
http://pl.vc/52wou (Not available for your device… bla bla )
The closest I come to watching it on the Sony Xperia Tablet Z SGP321 is using the Dolphin Browser, Installing Flash, Enabling Flash in Dolphin and then head to the site using the Agent=Desktop.
In this case it looks like this:
http://pl.vc/407rk and after hitting install 😉 http://pl.vc/2n5e7
Thanks, any comments are appreciated!
@DerTatortreiniger, okay, I did some looking. It looks like there are separate Amazon App store apps for phones and tablets. Which one are you using? Found via this page
Everything I’m seeing says it *should* work.
Hi,
this I knew. Actually I stopped looking for ways to use it. For one I am not sure whether or not I will continue my Prime membership and secondly it is not that important to me since I have all my series available offline 🙂
For this I found a really cool thing: Plex Media Server. I can really recommend this to anyone with a big offline collection of movies and / or series.
Regards,
schotty
Yes, it will work very well but only only if you use the Amazon Play Store app and download the Amazon app from here along with the Instant Video app. Videos play without an problems.
Hope this helps, Joe
Here is how I got it to work
Settings》security》unknown sources
Then download amazon app store
Then download instant video
Then download the amzson shopping app
Then go to Google play andate then get the dophin browser
That’s it
Thing is,
“Then download amazon app store
Then download instant video
Then download the amzson shopping app”
all lead me to just one app – the amazon shopping app. I cannot download them seperately.
Since this was written, the Amazon app store has merged with the Amazon shopping app. So basically, just make sure you’re downloading the Amazon shopping app from Amazon, not Google and if you already got the Google version uninstall it first, then download the instant video app.
Hi,
this actually looks good up till now.
But since I have a german amazon account but currently am traveling thru turkey, I won’t be able to test this properly till I be back (yeah I know I could use a proxy).
So I’ll give it a try when back home.
Cheers!
It seems the app will only work on Android phones, but not tablets.. Anyone know differently?
Hi,
not sure whether the new version of the app itself or the fact that I indeed did uninstall the amazon app from within the google play store and then installed the app from amazon.de/androidapp
What I can say is that it does work on a sony xperia tablet sgp321 totally smooth, 2 clicks to get the film running. on a xt890 it doesn’t work ….
Works on the galaxy tap pro 8.4…make sure when downloading the amazon shopping app. from the amazon app store it is not the one for the tablet. The one that just says amazon is the one that will work.
1.make sure you have the allow apps from unknown sources checked
2. Get amazon app store from amazon.com
3.download “amazon” from the app store. not the tablet app
4.download the prime instant video app from the app store
Bam you got video
Looks fine and wasn’t to twitchy.
@mark cumnock, I would update your list just a little as I’m new to all of this but you helped me get this to work on my KitKat tablet!
Settings》security》unknown sources
Then download amazon app store
Then download instant video
Then download the amazon shopping app
Then go to Google play and then get the dolphin browser
When installing dolphin browser, Decline the installation of Flash
Run Instant Video
Unfortunately, the website did not work for me.http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/01/01/want-amazon-instant-video-android-tablet-heres-install/
I tried everything that it said and even still, with the dolphin browser installed and flash even installed, it still says(amazon prime) not a compatible device. 🙁 argh. Stupid amazon.