What you need to know
- Amazon is adding a shuffle button to the Prime Video app.
- Once this is available, you'll be able to watch episodes in a TV or streaming show in a randomized order.
- It only works for single seasons.
Amazon is adding a shuffle button to Prime Video via an update to its Android app. Once this rolls out, users will be able to start a series at a random point, watching it without care for the canonical order. Ths change was spotted by the folks over at Android Police and should be coming to both Android phones and Fire tablets.
It's an excellent option for cutting down choice in sitcoms where character arcs and narrative development can often happen asynchronously or even in documentaries where such things don't exist. It's not a good choice if yore viewing something like The Boys or Game of Thrones where those things are paramount. Obviously user discretion is will be important here.
Amazon isn't the only streaming service to be picking up shuffling. Netflix famously announced one earlier in the year, aimed at lettting people start random movies right from the homescreen and cut down on the streaming service's paradox of choice.
Variety reported on the company's reasoning, saying:
In explaining why Netflix is launching "shuffle play" as a permanent feature, COO and chief product officer Greg Peters said that sometimes users come to the service "and they're not really sure what they want to watch.""It's really working for us where our members can basically indicate to us that they just want to skip browsing entirely, click one button and we'll pick a title for them just to instantly play."
The same logic applies to TV shows as well, albeit not universally as we already noted.
