DeluxeTube – A YouTube video player tech-demo for your favorite videos. Search for videos or copy a video URL (i.e. from the official YouTube app) and paste it in DeluxeTube.
Features
• No need for API keys, no need for external services. All processing takes place on the device.
• Play your videos without ads and add them to your playlist
• Playlist modes: Single, Next, Loop, Shuffle
• Playlist import and export: Export to JSON, import from URL (i.e. Dropbox direct link etc.)
• Selectively remove videos from your playlist
• Device awake during playback, timeout applies when idle
• Support for any YouTube video URL format (youtube . com, youtu.be etc.)
• Set default video on startup
• Full-screen video playback on landscape (iOS only)
• Auto-play on load
Download
• Android (link)
Issues
Please reach out to me if you come across any.
Limitations
• The app’s orientation is locked to portrait due to app locks when tilting to landscape and back multiple times.
• Landscape full-screen video playback works on iOS but not on Android. This is because iOS disregards the app’s portrait orientation setting for the video playback only but Android won’t so it sticks to portrait.
• The status bar on iOS is white (known issue, currently being investigated by Thunkable).
• The “Keep screen awake” feature does not seem to work properly on my Samsung Galaxy S10 however, it works fine on any other device I tested the app on.
• Videos auto-advance properly when on playlist mode only if the video playback is paused and played (if needed) using the app’s Play/Pause button. Using the video player’s controls will un-sync the timer employed for achieving the auto-advance feature. This is a limitation as there is no way to read the currently playing video’s play progress.
• Recently uploaded YouTube videos may not have a non-DASH version available yet. If you only get the video’s thumbnail but no playback, try again in a few hours. For more information on YouTube DASH and non-DASH video formats read this.
• Live streams are not supported.
Questions & Answers
Q: Can I have a copy of your project?
A: I would very much like you to try to replicate it and ask questions if you need help with it. I created this app as a tech-demo and to motivate others to push Thunkable’s limits to get the job done.
Q: Will this ever be made available on the app stores?
A: I doubt that. There are so many other similar apps, one more won’t bring any value (unless we add kick-ass features down the road… who knows?).
Q: Do you make money out of this? Are you sure there aren’t any ads or hidden costs?
A: Heck no! I do this to learn and have fun.
Q: Is this a virus?
A: Dude… seriously… no.
Q: Don’t you have better things to do than building this app for free?
A: Being in lock-down for the past 7 weeks, I thought I would find a nice way to kill my time and learn. It took me about a week of 2-4 hours a day to develop this app.
Disclaimer
I don’t own the rights for any of the graphics used in the app. As mentioned, this is a tech-demo/proof of concept to demonstrate what can be done with the Thunkable platform. I don’t make any $$$ out of this. This app was built solely for educational purposes.
Screenshots
Cheers!