WP YouTube Lyte on Android: native or in-browser playback?

With the latest release of WP YouTube Lyte I fixed a problem where iOS users had to click twice to view a LYTE-embedded video; once to activate the iOS YouTube player and once to start the actual playing. On Android that problem does not exist, as LYTE embeds can be played inline in the browser.
Based on my own tests however, performance and quality aren’t always optimal when compared to the experience the native YouTube app provides. So now I’m wondering; wouldn’t it be better to not only detect iOS, but also Android and have both of them play in their respective a native players, even if on Android this isn’t an absolute requirement?
Advantages:

  1. better video playback performance/ quality
  2. somehow feels more professional (it’s the way the YouTube mobile site seems to work as well for example)

Disadvantages:

  1. you force visitors out of the context of your webpage
  2. a small percentage of Android visitors will get an ugly error message as they do not have a native YouTube player
  3. only works for single video’s, not for playlists (or at least so it seems) and the audio-only trick obviously won’t work either

What do you think? Speak now or be silent forever!
And let me throw in a vid (Spiritualized with “Hey Jane” live) just for the heck of it;

Spiritualized - Hey Jane (live @ Maida Vale for BBC 6 Music)

And if you’re on Android you can click here to trigger the YouTube app to see the exact same thing.

As found on the web (June 27th)

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Workaround for Mobile Safari quirk in WP YouTube Lyte

Yesterday I released WP YouTube Lyte 1.1.5, which amongst other things has a workaround for the bug that required 2 clicks to play an Lyte-embedded Youtube on an iOS-device. The reason for the bug: WP YouTube Lyte replaces the “lyte player” with an autoplaying YouTube embed upon the first click, but Mobile Safari does not allow any media to autoplay. 1.1.5 now checks for the useragent (yeah, I know) and immediately adds a normal YouTube embed instead of the Lyte one if that useragent contains the strings iPhone, iPad or iPod.
So there you have it, only one click to hear and see this great “Here we go Magic“-clip  on your iPad.

Here We Go Magic - "How Do I Know"

Neat huh? 😉

10 jaar getrouwd met de liefde van m’n leven!

Op 8 juni 2002 trouwde ik met m’n Veerleken. Die eerste 10 jaar zijn voorbij gevlogen, maar Your love gets sweeter Darling! Hier zijn m’n verzoekplaatjes voor onze dag:

Playlist: sanf mini-soundtrack
Watch this playlist on YouTube

(dat zijn achtereenvolgens Minnie Ripperton, Air, Finley Quaye en The Turtles)
En ik kijk uit naar onze volgende 10 jaar!

Extreme battery drain on Galaxy SII

[Update: Firefox Sync does not drain my battery any more, but I’ve had similar experiences with Exchange Sync and Soundcloud. My latest discovery is Juice Defender, my battery now lasts between 36 and 48 hours!]
From May 29th until yesterday I was experiencing unacceptable high battery drain on my Samsung Galaxy S II with Ice Cream Samsung. Instead of the normal 24-36 hours, my phone only lasted for 5-7 hours. According to the battery stats, “Android OS” was responsible for up to 80% of total power consumption, where one normally would expect the “Screen” to be the biggest consumer. CPUSpy showed that my phone only rarely entered “Deep Sleep”. The problem only disappeared when I disabled “Data” entirely, not when just disabling “Synchronization”.
Based on information in this issue on the Android-bugtracker, I wasn’t the only one to experience this problem. There seemed to be multiple solutions which worked for some but not for others. Apparently “Android OS” was just the poor sucker to get the blame, while in fact other applications can keep your phone awake.
If you ever experience a similar problem, here’s how I finally stopped the battery drain: I uninstalled a number of applications and checked battery usage. If the discharging continued at the same rate, I re-installed the application and went for the next bunch. And just before uninstalling my beloved Firefox Mobile, I deactivated Firefox Sync, which I (only then) noticed was trying to sync continuously. Ouch! I removed Firefox Sync from the Synchronization services and battery life is back to normal since. One of these days I’ll re-enable Firefox Sync to see if the problem returns. If it does, I guess I’ll have to dive into ADB for debugging info and report back to Bugzilla? Good times!

As found on the web (June 6th)

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