In the United States Amazon has closed a deal with Apple to allow the purchase and rental of movies directly on Amazon Prime Video. How the service works
Agreement made between Amazon and Apple: now you can buy and rent individual movies and episodes of TV series directly from the app you Amazon Prime Video for iOS. A news that could not come at a better time for users, who are forced to stay at home for quarantine.
With this agreement, whose economic details have not been disclosed, it overcomes the problem that has until yesterday prevented Amazon to sell and rent content through the app for Apple devices: the 30% commission that Apple imposes on everything that is sold through an iOS app. Because of this limit Amazon had limited itself to only allowing content streaming via Apple devices. News of the agreement was revealed by CNBC, which states that it's already possible (in the US, of course) to buy movies and other Amazon Prime Video content directly on iPhones, iPads and other Apple devices. On its arrival in Italy, however, there are no confirmations or denials: we'll see in the coming days how the situation will be.
Amazon Prime Video on iOS: what changes
The heart of the problem was the method of payment of Amazon Prime Video content: the agreement provides that now you can buy and rent content using the payment method stored in the Amazon account, without going through the App Store. For users, the change is immediate and transparent: in the iOS app there is now a "Store" tab, where you can search for all the movies for rent or for sale. Once you've found the movie, a button appears to buy or rent it.
The new service overlaps with Amazon Prime Video Cinema, a recently launched platform that allows you to rent movies just released in theaters for 48 hours. Also in this case, the service for the moment is only active in the U.S.
Apple changes plans
We can imagine that this news is one of the first consequences of the change of strategy recently announced by Apple. The Cupertino company, in fact, until a few days ago imposed a 30% commission on every in-app purchase (15% in the case of annual subscriptions). Now, however, "Apple has a program for video subscription providers to provide a range of consumer benefits such as integration with the Apple TV app, support for AirPlay 2 and Siri, tvOS apps, universal search and, where possible, automatic login." It's not known if, how much and how Amazon and other companies that offer movies and content for subscription, sale or rent must then pay Apple.