In the past two months, Microsoft and Google have been bickering over one central issue: HTML5.
The Verge has learned that Google is forcing Microsoft to build its YouTube Windows Phone app in HTML5, despite its own Android and iOS versions using superior native code. Although Microsoft has offered to build ad support along with making other tweaks as Google has requested, a full HTML5 app isn't currently possible on the platform.
The reasons are mixed. Sources at Microsoft tell us that Windows Phone has some browser control limitations within apps, and that they'll be addressed in a future version of Windows Phone. "There is also an inherent behavior of Windows Phone where playback of an HTML5 video through a web page opens the built-in media player to host the video," says Michael Choeung, a developer of third-party YouTube app MetroTube. The restrictions make it difficult for Microsoft, and others, to control video playback and overlay controls on YouTube videos.
Microsoft calls Google's request for an HTML5 app "odd" but the reasoning is unclear, as Google has declined to comment.
In a statement, the company says: "We value our broad developer community and therefore ask everyone to adhere to the same guidelines."
These guidelines are designed to promote the public HTML5 APIs that Google provides, but if the APIs are sufficient then why aren't more developers using them widely on iOS? "I use an undocumented API as the HTML5 API is having some drawbacks," explains Muhammad Bassio, the developer of third-party YouTube iOS app Tuber. Bassio claims YouTube's HTML5 API isn't popular with other third-party iOS developers. "The ones I know don't seem to use the HTML5 API, as they play the videos natively in a custom player," says Bassio, citing Jasmine, McTube, ProTuber, TubePlayer, and YouVids as all using workarounds.
Sources at Google tell us that the company isn't happy with the way Microsoft has implemented YouTube ads, as there's no guarantee the correct ads will be served and tracked correctly. However, insiders at Microsoft tell us that Google has refused to assist Microsoft in implementing ads in the correct way, instead insisting that it uses the HTML5 APIs it knows Microsoft is unable to use right now. Google appears to be forcing Microsoft into a tricky situation; but it is one that Microsoft brought upon itself by teasing its users with a YouTube app that wasn't approved in the first place.
What happens next isn't clear. Google's initial public statements claimed the pair would work together to "update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube’s API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks." It didn't mention a specific HTML5 requirement, or that Microsoft would be forced to rebuild the app in a matter of weeks instead of updating the existing app. Google has previously stated it has
"no plans to build out Windows apps," noting that it invests where its users are and that "they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8." If that changes then Google says it would invest, but right now it seems like
Google doesn't want a YouTube Windows Phone app at all, whether it builds it or not.
More at:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/16/4627342/microsoft-google-battle-over-youtube-windows-phone
http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/16/4627342/microsoft-google-battle-over-youtube-windows-phone
So wait, Microsoft has HTML5 support on Xbox1, when HTML5 isn't supported on Windows Phone?:
struggle post I rock the htc one.
