By: Nick Gambino
You know that moment when you search for a movie on Amazon Prime Video and it turns up in your results? You’re all excited because you don’t have to shell out money – it’s free. Only it’s not. You click through and see you have to rent or buy to watch. Exhilaration followed by exasperation.
We’ve all had this experience and justify it away, quickly forgetting about it until the next time we run into it. Why are we getting a mix of free Prime video options with rent or buy options? It’s because Prime Video is more than just a streaming service, it’s also got its own paywall much like iTunes.
Well, it looks like Amazon is looking to make things a little easier for you with a new feature they’re testing. The feature is a filter they’re calling “Free to Me.” When applied, this filter will turn up search results only for those things that are actually free to you – in other words, videos that come free of charge with your Prime membership.
If you’re one of the lucky few who has access to the trial, you’ll see a switch you can toggle on in the top right corner of the main page once you update the Android app. We only know of the test being conducted on the Android app for now, but there’s no reason to assume they won’t roll this out to all Prime Video users.
Along with the newest update to the app (v3.0.261.16341), there’s also a new Top Actors feature. This allows you to follow an actor and receive notifications whenever a movie or show is added that features that person.
You should see this Top Actors feature as soon as you update, with prompts to start following your favorites. This one should be available to all users and not only as a limited test. Though, Android Police does suggest it’s still in beta.
Top Actors is cool, but I think we can all agree the real treat here is Free to Me. I’m hoping they roll this out to all Prime users on all devices soon.
