Simply put, Prime Video is ugly as hell. Its menus are cluttered, its library is a confusing mix of free, paid, and add-on content, and its overall UI is as friendly as the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park.
Fortunately, however, executives of the Amazon-owned platform have been aware of its design shortcomings for a long time, and Prime Video is finally getting a facelift worthy of its place among the top streaming services in 2022.
Starting this week, Prime Video is rolling out a new and redesigned experience for subscribers using the Prime Video app on living room devices (like Fire TV Sticks) and Android phones. The redesign also targets the streamer app on desktop and iOS devices, but not until all of the aforementioned devices have received the update first.
So what's the big idea? Well, the most significant design change comes in the form of an improved menu navigation system meant to help Prime Video subscribers more easily navigate through the platform's list of movies, TV shows, sports, and premium channels. .
As you can see from the screenshots below, the Prime Video app will soon feature a number of side menu options: Home, Store, Search, Live TV, Free with Ads, and My Stuff, including pages that will offer video dashboards. secondary navigation for better differentiation. . among the available content.
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(Image credit: Prime Video)Image 1 of 4
(Image credit: Prime Video)
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(Image credit: Prime Video)
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(Image credit: Prime Video)
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Sports programming, for example, will be listed in a dedicated Sports sub-menu in the Home section, while Prime Video's growing library of original content, soon to include the highly anticipated Rings of Power series, will appear in a dedicated carousel. separate from the platform's licensed movies and TV shows (similar to the Netflix Originals tab).
The Prime Video redesign borrows from Netflix in other ways, too. The app will soon feature its own Top 10 Chart, ranking titles by popularity (likely over a period of a week) and displaying them in an easy-to-navigate list. See it in action below.
The Prime Video team also appears to have acknowledged users' frustrations with content that is and is not available to watch as part of a standard Prime Video subscription.
New visual cues will be added to titles to differentiate between those available for free (marked with a blue checkmark) and those available for rent, purchase, or subscription (marked with a shopping cart icon). A handy My Subscriptions tab will also appear at the top of the home page, providing easy access to everything included in a user's membership.
And finally, the search page will give subscribers the ability to search for specific titles, genres, or collections while filtering results by standard or 4K UHD video quality.
As mentioned, the Prime Video redesign will begin rolling out to home and Android devices this week, with the iOS and desktop versions of the app expected to receive the update later in the year. We'll share our thoughts on the redesign once we've tried it out for ourselves.
Analysis: A game changer for Prime Video?
In a fiercely competitive industry, an update like this is great news for Prime Video subscribers who may have been tempted to ditch the service for greener pastures (as Apple TV Plus and Paramount Plus, for example, have gotten significantly better at 2022).
We recently reported on research suggesting that Prime Video currently offers customers the best cost-per-title value of any streaming service in most regions, but we also explained that this purely mathematical value doesn't make Prime Video the platform. more beneficial, period. , citing its poor user interface and smaller triple-A content offering compared to Netflix and Disney Plus.
Now, however, the streamer appears to have ironed out one of those major shortcomings, and with new movies and series on the way soon, along with the smash hit of The Boys season 3, Prime Video is, ahem, ready to make a move. ahead. Substantial bigger challenge against its biggest streaming rivals for years to come.
For more on the latest streaming service news, check out our thoughts on Netflix's spatial audio upgrade and our take on HBO Max's surprisingly well-received ad-supported plan.