Amazon sells a number of media streaming devices including Roku, NVIDIA Shield, and Amazon Fire TV products. But you haven’t been able to buy a Google Chromecast or Apple TV from the company for a while. It looks like that’s about to change though.
CNET reports that Amazon has confirmed plans to begin stocking Chromecast and Apple TV devices.
It’s unclear if the deal is part of an effort to resolve the company’s fight with Google that recently resulted in Google blocking Amazon’s Echo Show and Fire TV from being able to access YouTube, but I’d be surprised if the moves weren’t related to one another.
You haven’t been able to buy a Chromecast or Apple TV from Amazon since late 2015, when Amazon decided to stop selling devices that didn’t work well with Amazon’s own video streaming service.
Amazon recently released a new Amazon Video app for Apple TV, which helps explain the decision to start selling Apple’s media streamers again. Maybe Amazon will add Chromecast functionality to its Amazon Video apps for smartphones and tablets… or maybe the company just felt pressured by Google’s YouTube blocking maneuver.
Anyway, CNET notes that while you Amazon doesn’t have the devices in stock yet, there are a bunch of new product pages are on the Amazon website for recent devices in this category, including:
Of course, there are plenty of other places to get these items. But it’s nice to know Prime members will be able to add them to the same cart as their Kindle, cat food, and whatever else it is you buy from Amazon.
Definitely related. Good for Google playing hardball. Youtube is one of the few levers big enough to move Amazon.
makes sense to me. I won’t ever buy the chromecast or any apple product, but I’d sure like to get youtube on my fire tv. I’d almost have to give up on all my fire hardware if they yanked youtube, so this seems like a smart move by amazon
I don’t know. If they ported prime video over to the chromecast, it’d honestly be easier to navigate.