Sad me
I lost a bit of love for Amazon at Christmas. They gave me a month's trial of Prime, just as I was buying Christmas prezzies, so I took them up on their kind offer. Thinking that it was about time I got myself some of this streaming video malarkey. I also happened to have bought a Google Chromecast stick, because someone was coming over to watch an American football match at mine, and it was so cheap I decided it was easier than moving the PC to the sitting room for streaming purposes. Easy access to iPlayer and a cheap toy.
I was a bit disappointed that Amazon didn't have an app on the Chromecast. Particularly given their attitude to Kindle, where they had apps on almost everyone's systems - so you could know there'd be a good chance to access books you'd bought in many years time. Not that I did, but that's a promise I would severely doubt now.
But OK, Amazon have got their Fire TV, and stick in the US, so maybe they couldn't be bothered to write an app. So off I toddled to the PC, open the Chrome browser, and then if you launch the video player in its own window you can cast to Chromecast. Ah, nope. Amazon have deliberately blocked this. So now I'm intrigued, and do a bit of research online. Amazon have also blocked Apple AirPlay, so I can have their app and watch stuff on my iPad, but not cast to the big screen.
Now I'm a bit annoyed. Then I look for some content to watch. I think I searched for about 15 different things. Series or films. Some quite old too. They're all on there. Hooray! Oh no, hang on, there's no button to watch them. But I can buy them? Huh? Oh, I see. They're not actually available on Amazon Prime Instant Irritating Video - there's no way to just filter for stuff you've actually paid to watch, you can't use other devices to watch it, and basically you're paying them £5 a month for them to advertise stuff at you that they would sell to you anyway.
So I cancelled my Prime membership that evening, in case I forgot later. The Chromecast does the NFL app and iPlayer, plus Youtube. So far, that's enough. Apple TV is tempting, but quite restrictive, and I guess the real answer is a mini-PC or maybe a Roku. But everything out there seems to be limited in one petty way or another.
Amazon have disappointed me though. They used to be all about the content. But now they've gone into making mediocre tablets and phones, that seems to be changing.