Amazon Blocking Guide App for Fire TV Including Plex

As content continues to move between various streaming services, Google TV has turned out to be a lifeboat of sorts, making it easy to keep track of what content is available on which service. Some third-party apps have since found a way to reproduce it, but Amazon has blocked that “guide” feature on the Fire TV platform.

Google TV’s content “guides” allow the platform to show where movies and TV shows can be streamed or purchased. In many cases, these pages can be “deep linked” to other apps. For example, searching for “The Office” will bring up a button that will allow you to call up the show directly in the Peacock app.

Plex won similar features in various apps last year. Like Google TV, you can find shows and movies from various services and link directly to them.

but, tech hive It has been reported that the Plex “Guide” feature called “Discover” is currently blocked on Amazon Fire TV. This is because Amazon appears to have changed their policy to block apps on Fire TV from deep linking to other apps, but Amazon has yet to confirm such a change. Hmm. This is obviously embarrassing for users, but it’s not the only platform that blocks such behavior. Roku similarly blocks third-party apps from deep linking to other apps. That’s why Plex didn’t launch a “discovery” feature in the first place. This is certainly a user-hostile move and disappointing to see.

Over the past year, Amazon has made a similar move to block third-party launchers, but has scored some wins as a deal was struck to allow Google’s Android TV partners to create Fire TV sets. rice field.