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by mxd3 2156 days ago
The takeaway for me was this:

"The deal, announced in December 2017, also allowed Amazon’s video service to integrate with Apple’s voice-activated digital assistant, Siri, and the iPhone maker’s TV app, which launched in 2016."

To me this means that development for Siri is partly bound to whoever's willing to pay Apple enough money. This is really disappointing from the accessibility side.

2 comments

It's the other way around. Amazon didn't want to be integrated since that means you're just in a bucket of content that Apple controls and Amazon has no opportunity to control the user experience or offer additional upsells.

Part of the deal for the reduced cut was that Amazon _had to_ do these integrations, not that they were allowed to.

Amazon didn’t have to. Netflix doesn’t. Apple is a lot more lenient about which apps can get on the AppleTV than Roku. Roku wants a cut of ad revenue and forces each provider to make special deals.
Amazon agreed to do it in in exchange for a lower revenue share with Apple. This is in the article. All I did was summarize what was said in the emails.
It was a mutual deal. Netflix chose not to. Other streaming providers choose not to have in app purchases at all and still integrate. Either way it’s the provider’s choice.

Apple really wanted Prime so it made a deal.

Apple has publicly available intents that any developer can take advantage of.