While Microsoft and Google fight it out over an official YouTube app on Windows Phone we’ll keep enjoying myTube and Metrotube. When you ask someone in the community which YouTube app they like the best you’ll constantly see Metrotube and myTube vying for the top spot.
Which is the best? That’s hard to say since they both set the bar and it ultimately comes down to your own personal preferences. However, the latest update for myTube continues to tip the scale in its favor. Let’s check it out.
Head to the Windows Phone Store and you’ll see myTube sitting at 1.3. The latest update does a number of small things that add up to create a nice update. The most important will be the fixes around the API change Google made last Thursday. Those changes by Google resulted in one video working after launching the app, but subsequent videos not loading properly. Here’s what’s new in version 1.3 of myTube:
- Fixed issue where only the first loaded video worked
- Added auto-play support for playlists
- Non-English language support
- Bug fixes
Users will be happy that the app is now working after Google did some changes behind the scenes. You might have noticed only one video being able to play, but then others wouldn’t. It would work again if you closed the app and launched again. What did Google do? They blocked requests that didn’t have a user-agent string. The developer behind myTube, Christopher, set a user-agent string to myTube when the app starts. However, Windows Phone clears it after a request is made, which is why the app only played the first video. That issue has been resolved.
Auto-play for playlist
The one feature a lot of you are looking forward to is probably the ability for playlists to auto-play for both video and audio. Remember how the last update for myTube added the ability to play just the audio of YouTube video even if you left the app? That was awesome in and of itself, but this new addition makes myTube somewhat of a good source to play music. Fire up playlist with some good tunes and myTube will only play the audio from that playlists as you navigate around Windows Phone. Pretty dang awesome.
Language support
Another cool feature is the “cloud” based language support. What Christopher did was open source the language translation of myTube to beta users and it works a bit like Wikipedia. Within the beta version of the app you can directly translate myTube into your language. The changes you make will then be pushed to other users in the same language you use. Pretty awesome and a great way to ensure that myTube works well in whatever language you speak. That updated translation fix is then pushed to other users of myTube, which means you can then have an improved translation of myTube without an update needed to be pushed through the Windows Phone Store.
Italian, Spanish, German and Dutch languages have already been mostly translated and people should already be seeing support in this update. Don’t see your language? Join the myTube beta to help out and do your part. How do you join? Navigate to the about page in the myTube app and you’ll see instructions on how to join.
Right now myTube is available for Windows Phone 8 devices. It goes for $0.99, but does have a fully functional trial. The trial will limit you to one hour of video in a three hour period. Very lenient, but you really should buy the app because it rocks.
Grab it in the Store, use the QR code below, or swipe to the right in our app.
