To put it bluntly, Prime Video is ugly as hell. Its menus are confusing, its library is a confusing mix of free, paid, and add-on content, and its overall user interface (UI) is as user-friendly as the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park.
Fortunately, though, executives at the Amazon-owned platform are aware of its shortcomings on the design front, and Prime Video is finally getting a makeover worthy of its position among the best streaming services in 2022.
Starting this week, Prime Video is rolling out a new, redesigned experience for subscribers using the Prime Video app on living room devices (like Fire TV sticks) and Android phones. The review is also heading to the streamer app on desktop and iOS devices, but not until all those aforementioned devices get the update first.
So what’s the big idea? Well, the most significant design change is coming in the form of an updated menu navigation system meant to help Prime Video subscribers more easily navigate the platform’s list of movies, TV shows, sports and premium channels.
As you can see in the screenshots below, the Prime Video app will soon feature a series of side menu options – Home, Store, Find, Live TV, Free with Ads and My Stuff – whose pages will offer sub-navigation panels. to better differentiate between the available content.
Sports programming, for example, will sit in a submenu dedicated to sports 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 also borrows from Netflix in other ways. The app will soon feature its own Top 10 Chart, ranking titles based on popularity (presumably over a one-week period) and displaying them in an easy-to-navigate list. Check it out in action below.
The Prime Video team also appears to have acknowledged users’ frustrations regarding 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 icon) and those available to rent, buy or subscribe (marked with a shopping bag icon). A handy My Subscriptions tab will also appear at the top of the home page, giving easy access to everything included in a user’s membership.
And finally, the Find page will give subscribers the option to search for specific titles, genres or collections while filtering results by default or 4K UHD video quality.
As mentioned, the Prime Video redesign will begin rolling out to the living room and Android devices this week, with the iOS and desktop versions of the app set to receive the update later in the year. We’ll share our thoughts on the review once we’ve tried it for ourselves.
Analysis: A game-changer for Prime Video?
In a highly 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 (like Apple TV Plus and Paramount Plusfor example, improved immensely in 2022).
We recently reported on research that suggests Prime Video is currently offers customers the best cost-per-title value of any streaming service in most regions – but we also explain that this purely mathematical value doesn’t make Prime Video the best value platform, period, citing its poor user interface and triple-A content offering lower versus Netflix and Disney Plus.
Now, though, the streamer appears to have fixed one of those major shortcomings, and with new movies and series on the way soon — along with the internet-breaking success of The boys season 3 – Prime Video is poised to mount a more substantial challenge against its biggest streaming rivals in the years to come.
For more on the latest news from the streaming service, check out our thoughts on Netflix’s spatial audio update and our review of HBO Max’s surprisingly well-received ad-supported plan.