What you need to know
- Renting and buying titles from Amazon Prime Video is now done via in-app purchase.
- Affects iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV app.
- The New Store tab in the app lets you browse all titles for purchase or rent.
Amazon has added the ability to purchase content directly in the Amazon Prime Video app, meaning you can rent or buy movies and tv shows via in-app purchases don iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV without ever leaving the app.
While you've always been able to watch any purchased content through Amazon Prime Video on the iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS apps, you weren't allowed to buy them directly in the app. Before, you had to get directly to a separate site to make the purchase, and then you could watch the content in the app.
This roundabout way helped Amazon get around the cut of profits Apple takes from all App Store purchases (including in-app purchases), by having the transaction take elsewhere. It's pretty common practice for Apple to take about 30% of all App Store transactions.
The newly added Store tab in the Amazon Prime Video app lets you browse all the titles you can rent or buy. As of right now, the prices seem to be the same as they are from Amazon directly — no markup has been added for the cut Apple takes like other services have done in the past.
It's unclear whether Amazon has struck some sort of deal with Apple, or they just decided to be extra nice and flip the switch, but this is going to be a welcome change for many users who were frustrated with the old system.
