Archive for the ‘YouTube’ Category

iOS6 Video Playback Quality

Saturday, September 29th, 2012

We have been getting an increasing number of users contacting us to report that the video quality in our apps has degraded since their upgrade to iOS6 – so I wanted to take a moment to describe why this is happening.

When we play videos, we are not using a player that we created, we rely on the YouTube playback mechanism built-in to the device.  In versions of iOS before 6, a YouTube app was built-in to the operating system.  When we requested that a video “play” – it was the built-in YouTube player app that would play the video.

With the release of iOS6, Apple has removed the built-in player app.  In order to keep thousands of applications in the store (like ours) that relied on this player from breaking, Apple has chosen to use YouTube’s new iFrame player (HTML5).

The good news is that all of these apps still work.  The bad news is that for some reason, the iFrame player does not quite seem to be as good with regards to quality.  Additionally, the videos seem to take a bit longer to actually start playing once the link is clicked.

Unfortunately, this player is *NOT* a part of our apps.  There is not much that we can do to change the quality of the videos that it plays.  We are investigating other options and if we can find a higher quality method of playback, we will update all of our apps to use this new method.

Peter Hollens Official App is out!

Sunday, April 8th, 2012

When Peter Hollens contacted me a few months ago and said that he really wanted to work with me on an app I was flattered — he knew he wanted an app – and loved the workflow that the GeekUtils framework provided. I didn’t know much of Peter before this introduction, but I have grown to truly appreciate his talents – both vocally and creatively. It didn’t take long for me to happily agree to create an iOS product to showcase his content.

Peter has been involved in a capella music since 1999 when he co-founded the University of Oregon’s award winning a capella group “On the Rocks”. In 2010, Peter was featured on NBC’s “The Sing Off” and received acclaim from the judges for his solo performances.

Peter records and produces his music from his home studio in Eugene, Oregon and has recently recorded for Sony and Epic records. In February, Peter released his first full album which is available in iTunes (click here).

If you have not introduced yourself to Peter’s content yet – allow me to introduce you 🙂 Below find two videos – his latest video at the time of this writing (which has already gone viral) – a Skyrim themed video featuring Peter’s amazing a capella talents combined with Lindsey Stirling’s amazing violin performance. The second video is one that I particularly enjoy, Peter’s original song entitled “Sleepwalking”.

Check them out – then go download the app and buy his tunes 🙂





Having trouble logging in to YouTube?

Sunday, February 12th, 2012

Many of you have linked YouTube to your existing Google accounts.  Some have reported that they receive an error when they try to log in to their google account, despite being linked to YouTube.

With the recently added ability to “link” your account, YouTube now allows google account holders to rate/comment/subscribe to content without actually having a YouTube channel on their account.

We are working on an update to support these new “linked accounts” that are active on YouTube that do not have a YouTube channel, but, in the meantime – if you would like to login to YouTube using our app – simply add a channel to your account.  It’s free, takes only a couple seconds, and it doesn’t mean you have to start uploading videos.

To add a channel to your YouTube-Linked google account, simply visit the Create Channel page on YouTube by clicking here:

Once you add a channel, you can use all of the YouTube specific functionality in our apps without issue.

Important Updates for ALL Apps – please read!

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

We have released an important set of updates for all of the apps based on our “Vlogger” framework.

GeekUtils has moved to new server hardware – in order to continue to use our apps un-interrupted, please visit the app store and update to the latest versions ASAP. These latest versions were released last week, so if you have already updated – thank you – we hope you’re enjoying the app.

To find out what version(s) you are using, please load the app and take a look at the “About” page (found on the “More” tab inside the app). On the lower right corner of this screen you will find the version number.

The latest versions are as follows:

Please check the version of your applications using the method described above, and compare to the version in the list.  If the versions don’t match what’s shown in this list, please update as soon as possible by visiting the App Store or by clicking the links above.

This update is REQUIRED in order to continue using these applications once the old server is decommissioned.

Thanks, and enjoy!

iOS 4.2 update on iPad resolves playback issues.

Saturday, December 4th, 2010

If you remember a while back, we posted a blog entry where we described that YouTube video playback on an iPad (when running an iPhone/iPod app) was not working correctly.  Once playback started, the video was locked in portrait mode, and there was no way to exit the video once playback was finished.

As we described in this same blog entry, the iOS 4.2 update resolves this issue.  If you are using YouTube playback on the iPad, be sure to update your iPad to the new iOS 4.2 (available through iTunes).  Once your iPad is updated, videos will play back as expected.