> Didn't Apple have a similar problem with the ipod? People complained that it was not random because it would sometimes pick the same track twice or would pick tracks from the same artist more often than people expected.
I always thought this was by design: the "shuffle" algorithm wasn't designed to be random, but would instead occasionally group songs from the same artist or genre together (and/or favor songs w/ higher play counts_ - i.e. maintain a "theme" for a couple of songs before changing to something different)
I can't find any supporting evidence for this, however, and a lot of the discussions around their algorithm are hearsay.
I always thought this was by design: the "shuffle" algorithm wasn't designed to be random, but would instead occasionally group songs from the same artist or genre together (and/or favor songs w/ higher play counts_ - i.e. maintain a "theme" for a couple of songs before changing to something different)
I can't find any supporting evidence for this, however, and a lot of the discussions around their algorithm are hearsay.