Amazon today announced the launch of a free, customizable News app for Fire TV and Fire Tablets. The ad-supported app, which doesn’t require a subscription, allows customers to choose the providers and categories they care about and makes it easy to stay up-to-date with live and trending content from various news providers all in one.
The News app can be found Fire TV devices, under the ‘Your Apps and Channels’ row on the homescreen. In addition to the News app, there is also a dedicated News row on the Fire TV homescreen, with Live news and short news clips from different providers, ordered by recency.
Customers can select clips, live, and trending news from CBS News, Reuters, Huffington Post, Bloomberg, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Entertainment, AOL News, Al Jazeera, People, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated, Cheddar, Newsy and Wochit. To get started, users simply say “Alexa, play the news,” and their channels will start playing.
Users can customize their news experience based on your preferred news channels and the type of categories they want to watch the most. When you open the app for the first time, it gives you the option to put your news providers in the order in which you want them to play so when you order Alexa to play the news, she’ll auto-play content from your favorite channel first.
News also categorizes content by topic, so there is a dedicated section for live news, politics, tech, business, finance, and sports, with more categories coming over time.
The News app allows you to browse different stories without leaving the content you’re currently watching. It allows you to use your voice to skip to the next story, pause, rewind, or fast-forward; the down-select button on the remote, allows you to see a carousel of stories from the same channel; and you can also see what’s coming up and skip ahead.
The app, which is still rolling out, will be available to Fire TV customers in the US over the next few weeks.