SL360 issue when opening via phone

Hey Dave - I'm not seeing that behavior on my mobile phone. 

Do you experience that behavior when you test my published output here:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/tempshare-stage.storyline.articulate.com/sto_1b915nu694ee164v3o6139g1nts9/story.html

Hi Leslie

Yes...when I access the link from my mobile phone, the content does not open, but instead routes me to download the Player. Here is a screenshot of my phone, which I see as soon as I click on your link:

Hey Dave - Thanks for checking on that for me. Can you give me some details of your phone and OS so that I can get some other eyes on this?

Phone is HTC 6525LVW

Android version 6.0

HTC Sense version 7.0

Software number 6.21.605.3

Hey Dave - Well, I will admit I'm learning everyday and I'm not a big Android user :) With that being said, based on some colleague testing, it does appear that the Articulate Mobile Player does run on Android phones. Our documentation here mentions that it's optimized for tablets on Android devices, but it does install on phones I'm learning. The iPhone does not, which is what my initial test was on.

That being said, it does not assist in your initial question as you will not be able to designate with regards to Android devices (tablet vs phone) it seems. Would publishing just to HTML5 and viewing in a supported browser work for your tablet viewers as well?

Unfortunately not. We need a solution that offers both options from a single link. Those with the app installed can open the content in the app if they choose, while others who don't have the app can either opt to install the app, or view the content in their browser.

One follow up note--I'm particularly concerned about steering the user towards the phone version of the Player app. The app has a record of horrible performance (which I've experienced personally--had to uninstall it from my phone); and in speaking directly with Articulate leadership about this, my understanding is that there are no real plans to improve this.

This creates a serious conundrum for us, whereby the only way our clients can view the mobile content we create with SL360 on their phones is by using an app that doesn't work. As you can imagine, this reflects poorly on us.

Hi Dave,

Thank you for sharing that insight here with us, and I hope I can clear up a few things. The Articulate Mobile player app was something you could use on a tablet such as an iPad but it wasn't something that was available or supported for an iPhone and was optimized for Android tablets vs. the phone as Leslie mentioned. So although courses were opening in the Android phone within the mobile player, the experience wasn't what we had designed for.  

The new 360 responsive player was designed to ensure the mobile output would be well designed and consistent across devices and alot of that was driven based on feedback about our existing HTML5 output and the Articulate Mobile player. The new responsive player is our answer to ensure that mobile content works and plays as expected and that you wouldn't need to use a specialized player (unless you were including things such as an FLV file type, which won't work in HTML5). Now you mentioned needing to have users be able to access the HTML5 content and the Articulate Mobile player content - and I know with Storyline2 that was often the case based on a few known issues with published output/methods on particular devices - are you still seeing this as an issue in Storyline 360 if you did not include the option for the Articulate Mobile player? From our perspective there wouldn't be a need to include it, unless as mentioned it was particular video types - and if you have a situation we haven't thought of I'd love to discuss that with you further. Feel free to keep the discussion going here in the Community forums or I can reach out to you offline.

Hi Ashley

I'm happy to discuss this in more detail offline. In short, we need both options because our client's audience is comprised of hundreds of independent business people; some of whom will view the content via their tablet, and others via their phone. 

For those with tablets, we've recommended they install the Player app, so the content works smoothly and can run locally from their device. However, for those who'll be using phones (which is a significant number - they simply don't use tablets on the job), we need the content to run smoothly in their phone's browser.

Creating two separate links (one for phones, the other for tablets) would create confusion and reflect poorly on our client, who is aiming to deliver a seamless solution to their network of users.

As I mentioned, I'm happy to discuss--please feel free to give me a call at your convenience. This is an issue that I would surmise is not specific to us, but other developers as well--particularly those who work outside the enterprise environment.

Thanks David - I'm going to message you directly, keep an eye out for my email. :-)