Amazon releases new shopping app on Android for US, original no longer accessible

Amazon has released a new shopping app in Google Play with the name “Amazon Shopping” for the United States (and possibly select countries). The app takes the place of the original Amazon app, which has been stripped of access from US by the e-retail giant following changes in Google Play developer distribution agreement. The original Amazon app can still be found in Google Play from most of other countries including India.

The original Amazon app was updated in early-September with built-in support for Amazon Appstore and Instant Video and these features don’t sit well with Google’s dev agreement (most likely due to the integration of Appstore, but Amazon hasn’t said so explicitly). Thus, Amazon has released the new app, however the company says the old app can still be manually downloaded from its website.

Here is the full Amazon Statement regarding the matter, as given to TechCrunch:

We launched a new Amazon App for Android Phones on September 9 that provides an award-winning mobile shopping experience, enables customers to discover and purchase all of Amazon’s digital catalog, and provides customers access to the Prime Instant Video player and unlimited streaming of over 40,000 movies and TV episodes.

Google subsequently changed their Developer Distribution Agreement on September 25. As a result, we removed the app from Google Play and published the Amazon Shopping app. Customers who want the best Amazon experience on their Android phone, including access to Prime Instant Video and Amazon’s entire digital catalog, can still get the Amazon App for Android Phones at amazon.com/androidapp.

The new Amazon Shopping is almost same as the original Amazon App apart from the missing Instant Video and Appstore support.