As promised back in April, Amazon and Google have brought their popular video apps to each other’s respective streaming platforms.
You can now download the official YouTube app on Amazon’s Fire TV Stick (second-generation and Basic Edition), Fire TV Stick 4K, and Fire TV Edition smart TVs, with support for other devices arriving over time. The app even supports Amazon’s Alexa assistant, so you can search for YouTube videos by voice. Meanwhile, Amazon’s Prime Video app is available on Google Chromecast and is coming soon to all Android TV devices. YouTube TV and YouTube Kids are still headed to Fire TV later this year.
Although Amazon used to offer its own YouTube app on Fire TV devices, Google started blocking it in early 2018, so the only way to launch YouTube on Fire TV was through a web browser. At the time, Google said it was retaliating against Amazon’s refusal to support Prime Video on Chromecast and Android TV and to stock certain Google hardware products on amazon.com. Eventually, it just made sense to put customers ahead of what’s become an increasingly deep rivalry.
That’s not to say Google and Amazon have resolved all their differences. Google continues to prevent YouTube from working on Amazon’s Echo Show smart displays, and you can’t buy Google Home smart speakers on Amazon. In fact, searching for “Google Home” brings up Amazon’s Echo speakers instead.
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