Amazon Fire TV customers will begin seeing a significant change on their streaming gamers subsequent month, as Amazon rolls out its greatest interface overhaul in additional than 4 years.
The new Fire TV expertise has been obtainable on Amazon’s third-generation Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite since December, however Sandeep Gupta, Amazon’s VP and GM for Fire TV, mentioned in an interview that extra gadgets will begin getting the replace in March. Those embody the Fire TV Stick 4K, first- and second-gen Fire TV Cube, and the pendant-shaped Fire TV.
Jared Newman / IDGAmazon’s “Free To Me” filter is one approach to keep away from being upsold on new companies, but it surely feels incomplete.
But even these options are imperfect. I’ve discovered that they weigh closely towards Netflix and Amazon Prime, to the exclusion of different companies I’m subscribed to, together with Disney+, CBS All Access, and Apple TV+.
Toward a greater streaming information
Those points communicate to a bigger drawback with Fire TV on the whole, one which isn’t in any respect distinctive to the brand new interface: It can nonetheless really feel like extra like a advertising and marketing train than an try and serve customers.
The residence display screen continues to have banner advertisements and sponsored content material rows, which you could scroll over to achieve the suggestions additional down, and content material from Amazon Prime and Amazon’s ad-supported IMDb TV service appear to get extra promotion than the rest. While different streaming platforms similar to Roku and Google TV have their very own advertisements and promos, Amazon’s method feels extra aggressive.
Jared Newman / IDGBanner advertisements: Still one of many worst Fire TV options.
But maybe it will begin to change as streaming companies begin jockeying for higher placement. On some stage, the quantity of Prime content material on the Fire TV residence display screen looks like a holdover from when most different apps weren’t interested by that type of aggregation. Traditionally, companies like Netflix have been extra intent on pulling individuals into their very own apps than promoting content material outdoors of them.
Gupta mentioned these companies are lastly coming round, although. He famous that Hulu + Live TV noticed a 50 p.c enhance in site visitors when it added channels to the Fire TV’s “Live” part, and mentioned streaming companies are beginning to see unified guides as a necessity for engagement. With any luck, the Fire TV expertise will change into extra balanced as streaming suppliers insist on placing their content material on show.
“You see more and more streaming services, more and more apps coming out, so where do people go to discover and find new content? That’s really where we spend a lot of time to improve the experience,” Gupta mentioned.
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