Forum Discussion
Articulate Mobile Player (AMP) End Support?
Hi,
I hope everyone is having a wonderful day, I am just here to voice a major concern about the coming end of life of the AMP.
I am a multimedia developer for an E-learning firm based in Canada. We have been using the AMP for some time and we think it's a wonderful tool to be able to provide our clients in developing countries experiencing internet issues with custom HTML5 downloadable offline content. Our main concern is that when December 31, 2020 arrives we will be left in limbo on how to provide offline content to our valuable clients.
We have tried different methods and this solution with the AMP works the best. I totally agree that HTML5 has matured in all browsers making it the best experience but the problem between the user and the offline content is how they get that content on their mobile devices? We have tried FTP, computer to tablet using USB, Micro-SD cards etc. and things get very complicated when running content that needs to be unzipped/launch directly on the iPad or Android. Also Google chrome or Firefox makes it impossible to launch the story.html file from a download folder on a tablet due to security issues.
From an end users point of view with little technical knowledge this can be a daunting task. So my question is why are you ending support when people like us rely on this fantastic piece of software?
Will the App remain available on the App store but with no support available?
Thanks so much for your answers in advanced.
Hello David,
Thanks for reaching out!
We are actively tracking requests for new ways to allow learners to access an offline version of a course. We haven't made any development decisions as of yet, but we will update you here if we make a change that will help.
Let me know if there's anything else I can do. I'm happy to help!
But this is NOT a new feature request. This is a continuation of a feature that seems to have been a major selling point for your product for a lot of us who chose to purchase Articulate.
Greetings Ruth:
I agree, and the above discussion was speculation on how we might find an alternate solution for downloads. Here's the email I sent to Articulate requesting that the company reconsider creating an HTML5 version of the AMP that continues to allow downloads. It would be helpful if other users were to send similar emails directly to the company.
______________________________________Greetings Folks:
I've been a loyal Storyline/Articulate user since 2015. I use Storyline exclusively to create all my eLearning courses. One of the attractive features that Articulate offered was the ability to view courses offline. As it stands now, all of my 12,300 eLearning customers have the option of downloading their courses to their iPad or Android tablet device. This was a major selling feature for my courses and one of the main reasons I chose Articulate over other eLearning creation software.
Given Adobe's elimination of Flash beginning next year, I understand that downloads will no longer be available via the Articulate Mobile Player (AMP). I find this troublesome since downloads are a necessary feature that is now disappearing with no HTML5 download replacement offered by your company. It seems to me that this is a great disservice to all those, like me, who purchased your product anticipating that this feature wouldn't disappear.
Given Articulate's resources and its obligation to its customers, it seems reasonable that you'd create an HTML5 download replacement for the AMP. As far as I can tell from the Articulate forums, no such replacement will occur. Therefore, I'm asking that you reconsider this decision and consider offering an alternate means of downloading Storyline-created eLearning courses to a mobile device.
Please remember that I, and many others, purchased Storyline primarily because of its “downloading” feature. Now this feature is disappearing. While I don't want to tell you how to run your business, it seems to me that it would be relatively easy for your company to create an HTML5 replacement version of the AMP that allows downloads.
I sure do appreciate your consideration here. I look forward to hearing your response to my request.
Sincerely,
Rod Machado
www.rodmachado.com
This response sounds quite different than where Lauren says above "We are preparing for how this is going to affect those who rely on the app to view content when the internet is not available."
This recent response makes it appear that Articulate is now treating offline playback on mobile devices, not as an existing relied upon feature by Storyline users for many years, but as a "new feature" that has to be requested by enough existing users.
Given that we are only 5 months away from when you have stated you will pull support for AMP, and you are not already engineering a solution as implied previously, but instead asking for a "feature request" for it, it appears the writing is on the wall.
So that leaves me with two questions:
1. How long will the AMP player remain on the App Store and Play Store after 12/31/20?
2. Will Storyline updates after 12/31/20 have the AMP publishing option removed?Answers to these two questions will help me a lot in determining how long I have to find an alternative authoring solution.
Thanks
GaryHi Gary!
Happy to offer more information! As we've learned more about the removal of Flash in the past few months, we've had to pivot our plans.
Articulate Mobile Player (AMP) courses rely on Flash output, so we’ll end support for the AMP app on December 31, 2020.
- How long will the AMP player remain on the App Store and Play Store after 12/31/20?
- Great question! We don't have an exact timeframe yet because it depends on when those stores will remove it, but we'll let you know as soon as we do. Since operating systems plan to disable Flash at the end of 2020, we don’t expect AMP to continue working after that.
- Will Storyline updates after 12/31/20 have the AMP publishing option removed?
- Our plan is to phase it out over time! There are many factors involved since other applications will also be affected. Since Flash will be removed by Microsoft in the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, we'll use that timing to remove the option from our tools. We plan to keep everyone informed so they are prepared when we make the switch.
Thanks for taking the time to follow up, Gary! We're happy to help if you have more questions.
I have a question. Why is Articulate scrapping a great feature that obviously many people use? I realize AMP relies on Flash but so did a lot of other things.
Just update the app?
My company makes extensive use of offline learning via the AMP. For a while there I thought there might be a trend away from offline learning and reliance primarily on Wifi and 4/5G for course delivery. That was a misconception on my part. The trend I've seen over the past few years is that offline learning is becoming even more popular given the mobility of learners and their desire to access eLearning anywhere and anytime while using their mobile phones or tablet devices. I have customers that listen to eLearning courses while driving, similar to how they'd listen to an audiobook. Other customers enjoy eLearning courses while traveling on airplanes, and so on. Given the complexity and extensive use of videos in my courses, 4G streaming to an iPhone doesn't work very well. Please ask your engineers to provide an HTML replacement for the AMP. As it stands now, I'm actively looking for an app that allows affordable delivery of my courses offline via a mobile device. Offline learning is essential for my business.
Thank you,
Rod Machado
- How long will the AMP player remain on the App Store and Play Store after 12/31/20?
Thank you for those responses Lauren. They are helpful.
Would you say come 1/1/21 with support for AMP gone, that it would be a safe, or at least a logical assumption that an Articulate supported offline playback method for tablets will not exist?
Thanks
GaryAnother vote for updating the AMP app to support HTML5 export. We have been using this feature extensively for years for our clients to use modules in locations with no or unreliable wifi ... offshore, inductions at security points, even in classrooms. It is just a much more robust method as often wifi drops out or has trouble keeping up video streaming bitrates.
Offline is definitely required, and as mentioned above I think it should be treated by Articulate as a necessary upgrade of an exisiting feature.
My company makes extensive use of offline learning via the AMP. For a while there I thought there might be a trend away from offline learning and reliance primarily on Wifi and 4/5G for course delivery. That was a misconception on my part. The trend I've seen over the past few years is that offline learning is becoming even more popular given the mobility of learners and their desire to access eLearning anywhere and anytime while using their mobile phones or tablet devices. I have customers that listen to eLearning courses while driving, similar to how they'd listen to an audiobook. Other customers enjoy eLearning courses while traveling on airplanes, and so on. Given the complexity and extensive use of videos in my courses, 4G streaming to an iPhone doesn't work very well. Please ask your engineers to provide an HTML replacement for the AMP. As it stands now, I'm actively looking for an app that allows affordable delivery of my courses offline via a mobile device. Offline learning is essential for my business.
Thank you,
Rod MachadoWe are also working on some learning that we will need the option for the user to view offline based on their location/connection. Please ask your engineers to provide any HTML replacement for AMP. Any other options out there?
I also rely heavily on the offline capabilities of the articulate mobile player. There are a few existing apps that I have found recently that will play the courses offline - most file manager apps do not. Document GoGo (although the player is tiny) is one that works and My File Manager (has adverts though) is another. However, because you need to zip a published web version to get this to work offline, the user then has access to your entire file structure including copyright images and sound files etc. Does anyone know of a way to hide/encrypt the files/folders within the zip so that only the story.html file is visible/accesible?
Greetings Helena and Eric:
I have eLearning courses built with Storyline and they're offered for offline use via the Articulate Mobile player. My customers enjoy that flexibility. So I'm concerned about continuing that service. I tried the "My File Manager" app and it works to download videos, but the questions embedded in each course are missing. There's no practical similarity or course structure here other than videos, which doesn't suit my needs, unfortunately.
Fortunately, I do have a LMS using LearnDash that also hosts my Storyline-created courses as .zip files. It turns out that there might be two opportunities (that I've found so far) that might allow me to create an App for my courses that allows downloading via my LMS. I'm checking into this now. Here are the two links you might want to check out.
1. Use an app builder platform (https://apppresser.com/).
2. Get an app custom-developed (https://appboss.com/learndash-mobile-app-case-study-for-editsu/).
The folks at BuddyBoss have just redesigned a mobile app that might have downloadable features. I'm waiting to hear from them. Ultimately, I might have to hire someone to design an App to offer my courses offline.
And please let me know if you find any additional information regarding downloads.
Sincerely,
Rod Machado
www.rodmachado.comThank you for this Rod. I will look into the links you have provided.
Did you link to a zipped version of the web published content when using my file manager? My modules work perfectly, its just that they would have access to all the other folders. You also need to launch with the story.html file.
I am really interested to see what Buddyboss have to say and I wondered whether there may be enough people interested in working together to hire somebody to create an alternative to amp?
I will continue to dig and update on here with anything useful.
Best wishes
Helena
Greetings Helena:
Yes, I did try File Manager with a zipped file. And I did access the "story.html" file, too. It works fine for showing despite creating a static image of the first frame on each video and placing this between each video. This isn't, however, the kind of tool that would be useful for me. It turns out that AppPresser is an App creation site that allows the import of a LearnDash site (the LMS I use to support all my video content). Once the LMS is imported into the app (and it looks nice, too), the students can download videos directly to their device (see link below). Creating this app using AppPresser's software is relatively easy and much less expensive than most other App creation software. But, this is just one option.
I think the upcoming Buddyboss App (due out this month) looks promising.
That said, I would be interested in the creation of an app with a clean interface that could allow downloading of Storyline content. Sharing the cost on this would certainly make this more affordable. Please keep me posted.
LINK: https://docs.apppresser.com/article/425-download-media-from-wordpress
Sincerely,
Rod Machado
rod@rodmachado.com
Hi Rod and Ruth,
I totally agree that this is not a new feature request. I am also concerned that with just over 2 months to go, we are not getting a straight answer about whether there is going to be a solution to this.
