There is a very strong argument to made that HBO is the current king of premier television content. Which would naturally make one think that HBO has been putting a lot of resources behind making marathon, or “binge”, viewing habits a priority. Surprisingly, that has not been the case—until now.
HBO recently released an update for iPhone and Android HBO Go users that enables a binge watching mode where the app will automatically play the next show in a series, without asking for additional user input. This is a feature that most customers take for granted given the fact that major HBO Go competitors like Hulu and Netflix have been using autoplay features for years.
The feature is relatively straightforward. At the end of an episode, the app will prompt you to either click to start the next episode immediately, or wait a few seconds and the app will automatically begin the next episode. Much like Netflix, the app will now also prompt you to pick up where you left off if you go back to watching an episode you didn’t finish the first time around. Yes, unbelievably, that feature was not available before!
Catching up on Game of Thrones is now easier than ever before. This is a long overdue update for HBO Go and may finally make it a reasonable alternative for those who are unwilling to shell out the extra money for an HBO Now subscription–the undeniably best service for watching HBO on something other than a television.
HBO Go has long been known for a clunky user-interface that users were forced to interact with after each episode. While this update does not solve the clunky UI problem, it does allow customers to interact with the UI less and focus on the high-level content that HBO is so well known for. Overall, this a long overdue step in the right director for HBO Go.
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