Amazon Prime Video counts itself as one of the top streaming choices around the world, thanks in part to the bundling with Amazon Prime, and also in part to the content available. Over the past months, the service has added in new features to retain its user base and gain more subscribers. For instance, the Watch Party feature lets you watch content together with your friends, while Profiles lets multiple users use the same account and still have segregated content feeds. Now, Amazon Prime Video is preparing to let users play a random episode, and also select an audio language for download.
An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.
We spotted the following strings in Amazon Prime Video v3.0.227.35447 app for Android:
<string name="AV_MOBILE_ANDROID_ACTION_BAR_SHUFFLE_EPISODES">Shuffle episodes</string>
<string name="AV_MOBILE_ANDROID_ACTION_BAR_SHUFFLE_EPISODES_TOOLTIP">Love every episode? Shuffle the entire series for a playlist of random episodes.</string>
The Shuffle Episodes feature is similar to the Random episode option that was spotted for Netflix (but that hasn't rolled out yet). We reckon the motivation behind this feature is to emulate some of the nostalgia of cable TV wherein users can often bump into random episodes that they can watch or revisit. This works best with lighter shows that do not follow a strict timeline, so users can simply watch something without putting in the effort in selecting content. According to the string description, the Shuffle Episode button will create a shuffled playlist, which is similar in function in just selecting a string of random episodes.
Further, the app is also working on allowing users to select the audio language for downloading content:
<string name="AV_MOBILE_ANDROID_DOWNLOAD_BOTTOM_SHEET_DIALOG_ALWAYS_ASK_CHECKBOX">Always Ask</string>
<string name="AV_MOBILE_ANDROID_DOWNLOAD_BOTTOM_SHEET_DIALOG_AUDIO_LANGUAGE_TITLE">Audio Language</string>
<string name="AV_MOBILE_ANDROID_DOWNLOAD_BOTTOM_SHEET_DIALOG_CHOOSE_AUDIO_LANGUAGE_TO_DOWNLOAD">Choose an audio language to download</string>
<string name="AV_MOBILE_ANDROID_DOWNLOAD_BOTTOM_SHEET_DIALOG_PREFERRED_LANGUAGE_UNAVAILABLE">Your preferred audio language is unavailable for this video. Choose audio language to download</string>
This upcoming feature would primarily be targeting TV shows and movies that have multiple language options available, which is very common for content released in multi-lingual regions. From the descriptions, it appears that the app will show a bottom sheet asking you which audio language you want to download.
We don't know when these features will be rolled out to all users, but we hope to see them go live soon.
Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.