Google on Android: YouTube

On September 23, T-Mobile announced the world's first Android-powered phone, the G1. The phone comes preloaded with Search, Maps, Gmail with Contacts, Calendar, Google Talk, and YouTube. The applications are easy to use, fully synchronized with the web, and work together in new and innovative ways, as explained in our first post in the blog series: 'Google on Android'. Over the next couple of weeks, we will put the spotlight on each one of the Google applications for Android. Today: YouTube. -- Marc Vanlerberghe, Product Marketing Director.

Whether it's the infectious laughter of "Dad at the Comedy Barn" or Randy Pausch's uplifting "Last Lecture," YouTube on Android can bring news and entertainment to you in an immediate, personalized way. Let me tell you about my favorite YouTube features and how I use them.

I walk into the local coffee shop to get a dose of caffeine -- double espresso is my drink of choice. The Formula 1 race in Singapore was two weekends ago, the first night race F1 has ever held. I wonder if there are some highlights on YouTube. I slide open the keyboard and type "Formula 1 Singapore" and sure enough, there's a video with some footage from the first practice session. The cars look fantastic under the lights. I wonder if my friend Ken has seen this video. I click on the "Menu" button, select "Share," and up pops the email application - I know Ken will appreciate the video as much as I do.

When the video is done playing, a bunch of related videos pop up.

This is great because I can simply choose from any of them to see more F1 racing footage. This feature makes it easier to find more videos that interest me.

While I am busy watching the F1 video, my wife emails me a link to a YouTube video of the San Jose Taiko company. She's a big fan of taiko drumming and is asking if I want to go with her to the concert on Sunday. I tap the link in the email message and watch the video. Wow, I can't wait to see the concert. I hit the back button to take me back to the email conversation and reply to my wife, "Yes -- let's go!"

In addition to the tight integration with Gmail and other applications that are already on the device, I find it really cool that YouTube on Android exposes its search functionality to other Android apps through the open application framework, giving applications like the built-in music player the power to quickly find relevant videos. All I have to do is long-press on the artist, song name, or album to do a search on YouTube for a related video. I'm really looking forward to seeing how developers will integrate YouTube features into their own applications.



Posted by David Sparks, Technical Lead, Android Team

dear husband,

Tomorrow we will have been married for 7 months. It's crazy how time flies! Despite my "miss independent" past, I am now completely dependent on you :) I fall more in love with you every day, and being married to you is the best thing I ever did.

Here's 7 little (and not so little) reasons why I love you:
1. You're a great cook.
2. On the same day you got a bonus from work, you gave a large chunk to a homeless guy.
3. You're a people person and everyone loves you (not as much as I do though).
4. You work hard for us.
5. When I'm running around trying to get things done, you always stop me, give me a hug, and remind me that you love me.
6. You love chocolate and can always find a reason for rewarding ourselves with some :)
7. You're pretty darn good looking.

123,
Your wife.

New Admin Console Release

Posted by Marzia Niccolai, App Engine Team

Today we've released some new features in our Admin Console to make it easier for you to manage your application.

Admin Logs: This new feature displays a record of all actions committed by the application's admins. Click on 'Admin Logs' under the 'Administration' section of the navigation bar. You can search for app configuration, version management, developer administration, and datastore changes. Just choose the desired event from the drop down and click 'Display'!

Regex Filtering in Logs: Looking for all requests that throw a certain error? Want information on all requests containing specific query arguments? Use the new regex filter on the logs page of your admin console to search for requests that contain text matching a given regular expression. Note: at most 10,000 log records are searched per request; use the Next link to search further back. The time stamp of the last record searched (not the last record matched!) is displayed to help you decide whether to search further back. If the end of the logs is reached, the Next link is not shown.

Log URLs can now be bookmarked: The logs URLs in the admin console now include an offset argument so that you can bookmark interesting pages, and send them to other admins. This also enables usage of the 'back' button on your logs pages.

We hope these changes will make it easier for you to manage your app and troubleshoot any issues you may have.