Create an Amazon Fire TV App in 6 Easy Steps

By Taylor Kirchwehm on June 02, 2017

Here at Zype, we’re constantly updating our platform. We’ve recently released significant improvements to our Amazon Fire TV app builder user interface including detailed inline tooltips, helper images, and better form fields. This new workflow connects improved design and self-service documentation to allow for minimal developer support when producing and publishing an Amazon Fire TV app using our software platform. That’s time and money that can be spent creating content!

To access the new Amazon Fire TV flow, head over to Manage Apps. Click on Create an App and select Amazon Fire TV from the push-button column.

Plan to take about 20-30 minutes to complete this flow. Before you start, we recommend having completed the following steps:

Prepare Images : Please review the Amazon Fire TV image guidelines to learn about the image and branding requirements for AFTV.

Content Structure : Refer to these content guidelines to learn how to structure your content for AFTV and other apps.

Monetization (optional): If you plan to monetize your content, please refer to these monetization guidelines to configure monetization on AFTV.

Amazon Fire TV App Builder Demo

Step 1 - Basics

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To access the new Amazon Fire TV flow, head over to Manage Apps. Click on Create an App and select Amazon Fire TV from the push-button column. Once you’ve selected the Amazon Fire TV endpoint, you’ll be prompted to enter the basic details of your Amazon Fire TV app such as a title and description to distinguish your app within the Zype platform.

Step 2 - Theme

What aesthetic and mood would you like your app to have?

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Choose between a Light and Dark option for the overall theme. The Brand Color allows you to enter a specific HEX # as the accent color to give your app subtle pops of color.

Step 3 - Images

There are some images that are required for app submission such as a Header Logo, Playlist Thumbnails, App Store Icon and Store Background Image. You have the option of uploading a Featured Content Logo and Background image during submission, but they are not required. We outline all of the image pixel requirements in Step 3 of the app builder flow. Learn about specifications for AFTV image assets .

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Once you’re ready to submit your app, you’ll be asked to upload these image assets within Amazon’s submission portal. We suggest creating a folder and keeping these image assets easily accessible to speed up the submission process. For a more detailed explanation of these images, please visit Amazon's image asset documentation.

Step 4 - Monetization

Enable advertising, universal subscription or in-app subscriptions and purchases for your Amazon Fire TV endpoint. Monetization is optional, and if you choose to keep all disabled, your app will be free until you enable and complete all requirements for the option of your choice.

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After you’ve completed all the steps within this flow and have saved your settings, there will be some additional steps that are outlined in the inline tooltips to fully enable the monetization of your choice. We also email you the list of instructions with your app package. Additions or edits to monetization will update your app in real-time, so feel free to make changes after submission.

Step 5 - Features

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We offer some additional features to enhance the user experience on this final step such as Autoplay and Video Limit per Playlist.

Enabling Autoplay allows your videos to play back-to-back to keep your audience engaged and watching your content.

Enabling Video Limit per Playlist allows you to set a maximum number of videos that will load within any one playlist row. We recommend 50 videos at the most to ensure best load time.

Step 6 - Your app is ready! Time to submit it to Amazon.

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You will only be allowed to continue to Save and Publish if you’ve completed all 5 steps of the flow and each step has a check mark displayed next to them. If you see a red exclamation mark next to any of the steps, you will need to go back to that step and correct the form field error before moving forward.

Click Continue to have your bundled app package emailed so you can submit the app or pass it to an external developer to customize your app further.

You’re Ready to Roll

Now let’s get your app submitted to Amazon’s marketplace! Whenever you're ready to submit, follow the instructions that are outlined in the email to preview, test and submit your Amazon Fire TV app.

Working with an in-house or external developer to submit your app? We have outlined step-by-step instructions for developers that are creating and publishing your Amazon Fire TV app powered by Zype’s Endpoint API service.

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Note - Amazon takes roughly 1-2 weeks to approve and push your app live to the marketplace.

We’re here to help you become successful at producing and publishing your Amazon Fire TV app using our video platform.

What do you think of the new flow? Shoot me a note at taylor@zype.com if you have questions or want to chat about what’s worked or hasn’t worked for you.

Thinking about launching your own AFTV app? Request a Zype demo!

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