If you’ve ever wanted to respond to a text, compose an email, or browse the internet while watching a YouTube video, you’ve been pretty much out of luck doing that on the same device. However, Floating YouTube Popup Video can allow you to do all of these things on your device, the only limit being your screen size and processor power.
FYPV works in conjunction with the YouTube app; it’s not a replacement. You will need to find the video in the YouTube application and then share it with FYPV in order to get the video overlay started.
Once the overlay has started, you can launch other applications, re-size the window, and multitask pretty well on a decently powered device. On my HTC EVO 4G LTE, I found that I was able to text and tweet with nearly no problems, although Chrome Beta ran like a frozen slug through molasses. My other browsers seemed to work fine, so I’m not sure what’s going on with that.
After the video is playing, you can resize and move the window around so you can get at the keyboard, or tap where you need to. The application is ideal if you’re watching longer videos and want to chat about them with your friends, or if you know you’re going to have to answer emails and texts non-stop.
Unfortunately, when the video is over, you’ll have to go back to the YouTube app (or launch it through the overlay) to select another. As far as I can tell, you can’t share a playlist, so after the video is over, it’s time to select another one. For short videos, that’s kind of annoying, but if you’re watching a 15 minute video and don’t want to devote your phone to YouTube, it’s amazing.
It appears if you just launch the Floating YouTube app, you’re given the option to search YouTube, but your subscriptions and feeds aren’t there. So it’s not quite a full replacement for the YouTube app but is pretty darn awesome nonetheless.
While you’re limited in screen space on phone-sized devices, it’s still an extremely useful little app for truer multitasking. On tablets it’s great.
The application is free, and pretty darn amazing. I’d suggest getting it unless you think you’ll have the old Pop Up Video theme stuck in your head every time you launch it.
Download: Google Play
That’s wicked cool!
This looks pretty cool!! I remember there being a similar app like this a while back but I think it was only for playing videos stored on your sdcard and that’s it.
Cool review Paul, will check it out!!
Actually here’s the app I was talking about….
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gpc.myweb.hinet.net.PopupVideo&hl=en
Oh that was neat…
Yeah, I stumbled into some floating stuff – Jenn (founder of G&E) mentioned that the Note II had a lot of that functionality and that’s ind of surprising that their multi-window feature hasn’t made it over here yet.
Now I’m wondering why it’s not here yet.
Yea, I just switched to the Note 2 for Sprint from my Evo 3D. I’m not regretting it at all. The multi-window feature is great, but not all applications can be used. The only ones allowed without rooting or using a different ROM are a few of the Samsung apps that come with the phone, and apps that are well known. (Facebook, YouTube, Maps, Gmail..)
Awesome.
However, why is the play link going to Web browser not app?
the way I code these the download links open the web browser.
The QR code is also clickable you’ll notice, and it opens the market..
When we did the transition from GoodAndEVO to Pocketables, and when it went from Google Market to Google Play, and when we de-”EVO”d some of the speak so I could write some general Android reviews, we dropped it to one link visible.
It used to be Download: Market(EVO) | Market(web) – or something similar. Since most people were reading on a computer and not on their EVOs, and since the market links worked to install from there… just sort of became what we did.
Looks like there may be some more floating apps out there… may have a field day with this…
That’s totally awesome, I can’t think of anytime recently that I’ve needed to use this, but it’s a great concept and shows the drive that we all (*cough* developers*cough*) have to create an awesome phone!
Evidently the chrome thing was not related
I think we could get some great functionality out of this if it were improved. I can imagine just a floating youtube/flash player integrated with every screen using a simple gesture, with copy/paste/search whether texting or browsing.
The floating window thing was going to be incorporated into CM but google made a phone call to the devs and the feature was pulled. With 10.1″ tablets floating apps are all the rage. They take some time to get used to but they are cool.
Check out Overskreen for a floating browser.
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned Dice Player. That app has had overlay floating video for forever, working perfectly and seamlessly.