3 days ago, Sittiphol Phanvilai released Mobitubia, a YouTube client for S60 3rd Edition that won the Forum Nokia Open C challenge. When Mobitubia was first revealed, a couple of months ago, we were all over-excited at the idea of being able to play flash files from YouTube on our devices. Now, after the N95 8GB firmware update that enabled flash playing through the web browser, the official YouTube application beta, and the early release of the very practical emTube developed by Sebastian Jedruszkiewicz, Mobitubia isn’t as groundbreaking as it once was.
Putting aside the official YouTube beta application which didn’t even play the video on the N81, and the new flash playing browser which is only available on the N95 8GB, which of emTube or Mobitubia is the best of show now? Jump after the break for all the deets.
So here we go… what do each of these lovely time-killers and joy-bringers have to offer? There’s a slideshow at the end of the post, of all the screenshots I could take from both applications.
Functionality – On paper
1 – Both of them:
- Search for a YouTube clip
- Open a clip knowing its YouTube ID
- Open Featured, Most Rated and Most Viewed clips
- Save the clip
- Show clip title and duration
- Play saved clips, and browse through the memory card for any .flv file
- Saved clips can be deleted or renamed
- Choose the cache or temp drive: phone memory of memory card.
- Volume control using the volume keys on any device who has them
- FF and RW through the video using the joypad keys.
- Open a clip knowing it’s url
2 – emTube:
- Add to Favorites and then browse through favorites (without having to download/save the clip)
- Shows more clip details (author, view count, size)
- When one clip is selected, you can see User videos (clips uploaded by the same author) and Related videos.
- Portrait mode is default, switch to landscape by pressing 1 on any device, or tilting the N95.
- Shows 5 search results by default, select More to see 5 more. This can be modified in the Settings.
- Settings included: default volume, maximum cache size, sort results by relevance/date/views/rating, start video manually/ASAP/when download is finished,…
- Manually open a clip in the phone / card
- One button mute/unmute by pressing 4.
- One button restart video by pressing 3.
3 – MobiTubia:
- Open webclips: opening flashes knowing the web page that contains them
- Plays flash video from any URL
- Landscape is default
- No real Settings window, though you can choose the maximum frame skip
- Most viewed videos can be selected by today, this week or this month
Functionality – In reality
The first time I launched emTube, I was extremely delighted to see how well it functioned. I would’ve rated it a 9.9/10 because I wasn’t expecting to see it handle everything so smoothly and I can’t wait to see what else Sebastian has to bring to it. Everything works as expected and walking around the menus is instantaneous and very pleasing. Whenever I wanted to do something, I found it where I expected it to be. My main gripes right now is that softkeys don’t function in landscape mode, and that the landscape mode/mute/restart aren’t in the options so you wouldn’t find about them unless you try pressing the number keys to see what they do. Other than that I would say thumbs up and keep rolling!
When I first opened MobiTubia, I got greeted with a dark red MobiTubia on a white background. I waited and waited and waited thinking it should load some time soon, then I decided to press the joypad center key: lo and behold, it opened! Why aren’t we automatically redirected to the software, I don’t get it. Anyway, for now, my main and huge gripe with MobiTubia is that it … doesn’t … play … the … video … continuously. There are lag times, very very very annoying lag times between each second of playback, that sound like the white noise on the FM Radio when you are on an empty frequency. I don’t know if this is only on the N81 because MobiTubia wasn’t tested on it. But for now this is one reason I can’t even hold 5 seconds on this app. I have to admit that I was excited to try MobiTubia when I read about it, but for now it just doesn’t cut it for me. I don’t care about the other functionality, as long as the playing isn’t working. Other
Futures wishes
It’s true, emTube is extremely well built now and Sebastian is already working on many improvements, but I do have some wishes of my own. Considering the fast rate at which emTube has been update, I hope these will be available very soon.
- Add a Landscape option that is easy to see, and a Help menu where we can see the shortcuts.
- Allow Softkeys to work in landscape mode
- Allow us to browse in the Inbox. Most of the time, I send .flv files to my inbox and I would like emTube to recognize them from the inbox (right now I get a Messaging : Feature not supported text) either when I pick Open Local File, to get an Inbox option, other than the Phone Memory and Memory Card ones that i get now.
- Saved videos that are loaded from the phone itself do not show up a screenshot and don’t have a duration specified. Work it out.
- When I open a clip manually from my phone, I would like emTube to add it automatically to my Saved files, or at least ask me to do so.
- Video duration is an important detail to know, I want to see it on the search results, and not when I delve into clip details. This can be very annoying if I am looking for a certain 7 minute clip and I end up loading a 30second clip instead, which both have the same name for example.
- Allow me to control playback using the multimedia keys on the N81 (and the N95 and the N91 and any other device that has them)
As for MobiTubia, my main wish is for Sittiphol to work on the lag times and find a way for the video to be played continuously. I think it’s a great competitor to emTube and I love many things about it: it automatically plays in landscape, can load .flv files from anywhere, phone is automatically scanned for new files, there’s no limit to search results and clip duration is showed very obviously. I would also like Sittiphol to support the scroll wheel on the N81 (it’s a perfect interface for it), show saved clips duration and screenshot, add a Help menu, automatically load the software after the main screen, and add Settings.
Final Words
For now, MobiTubia doesn’t cut it for me, but I have my eyes on it. I think there’s good potential behind it and I am waiting for a functioning version to enjoy what it can offer. As for emTube, it’s the best piece of software I have tried in a while and I really do like it.
If this was a World Cup game, emTube would be Italy with amazing players, a great coach and a lot of concentration and eagerness to win, and MobiTubia would be Brazil with first class players and a lot of impressive individual gameplay except that they can’t play together and they always end up messing things up! Well, Italy won the last World Cup, but I have always been a Brazilian football fan. There you go!
