skippable ads disabled in webapps on iPhone (using the HTML5 SDK)

[Daniel Szabo]

In Safari/iOS, videos play fullscreen on iPhones and inline on iPads. However, in webapp mode (when the app is added to the homescreen, thus navigator.standalone is defined) videos play inline on iPhones too.
Still, we get the error message "The provided ad type: skippablevideo is not supported." on iPhones, while they could be supported just like on iPads. If the video is not skippable, it just plays fine inline on iPhone too.

Can you please remove this hardcoded limitation so that skippable videos play on iPhones in webapp mode?

Also, in iOS 10 videos can play inline on iPhones in Safari too (without being in webapp mode), when the "playsinline" attribute is defined, so skippable videos could be played if this limitation was removed.

[Binny Patel (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for getting in touch. The reason iPads support skippable ads is because of having sufficient space where the SDK could render one. However, on iPhones, the SDK is unable to put the skippable UI on top of the ad. Therefore, we decided to not render skippable ads on iPhones and throw the above error message.

Thanks,

Binny Patel

IMA SDK Team

[Daniel Szabo]

Hello Binny,

Thanks for the answer, that makes sense.
Do you have a specific minimum ad container size for skippable videos?

I've just tested a WP8.1 phone with a screen width of 320 CSS pixels and got the same error message.
However, on a WP10 phone with a screen width of 360 CSS pixels the skippable video plays just fine.

In contrast, on iPhone 6 (screen width: 375 CSS pixels) and on iPhone 6 Plus (screen width: 414 CSS pixels) I get the error message.

Since the user experience is totally OK on the WP10 phone, is it possible to enable skippable videos on the bigger iPhones?

Thanks,

Daniel

[Binny Patel (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi Daniel,

I would like to clarify that the limitation is due to platform rather than screen size. On iPhones, the SDK is restricted from adding further UI on top of the video player, which is what'd be needed for a skippable ad.

Thanks,

Binny Patel

IMA SDK Team

[Daniel Szabo]

Hi Binny,

Thank you for your answer.
Is it possible to revise this platform limitation?
As far as I understand skippable UI cannot be rendered when the video plays fullscreen.
But in a webapp video plays inline, so UI can be rendered.
As a matter of fact I just faked the user agent on an iPod / iOS 7 and using a webapp skippable video plays inline with all UI rendered fine, skip button works as intended.
Similarly, is this the same limitation in case of WP 8.1? WP8 plays videos fullscreen, however, WP8.1 (IE11) plays them inline: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ie/2014/09/26/html5-audio-and-video-improvements-for-windows-phone-8-1/

[Daniel Szabo]

Regarding the WP8.1 issue: IEMobile 11 includes the tag "like iPhone" in the user agent string, so the detection code in the SDK incorrectly assumes it's an iPhone and disables skippable videos. Can you please correct this detection code in the SDK (in the script in bridge_xx,html)?

The other question still remains: Can you revise the skippable video limitation on iPhones when in webapp mode? (And preferably also when on iOS 10 / Safari)

Thanks,

Daniel

[Binny Patel (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for feedback. We don't have any plan for this right now, but we will let you know if we do in the future.  

Thanks,

Binny Patel

IMA SDK Team

[Daniel Szabo]

Hi Binny,

Disabling skippable videos might seem a minor issue (and the change required to enable them is minor, indeed), however, the vast majority of AFG's video inventory (TrueView) is skippable video. Thus, none of this AFG inventory can be served to users via the IMA HTML5 SDK. Also, even if, on very rare occasions, there is a short non-skippable video (lasting 15-30 seconds) available in the inventory, the user experience is just bad because they cannot skip it after 5 seconds.

Thank you for your consideration,

Daniel

[Tyler Sidell (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi Daniel,

Binny is OOO so I will be handling this inquiry.  We understand your concerns pertaining to skippable ads on iPhone devices but due to the device limitations, we can't support it at this moment.  We would advise the publisher to serve a separate non-skippable ad inventory to iPhone users.  However, we'll continue to discuss this as a team to see what improvements can be made, if any.

Thanks,
Tyler Sidell

IMA SDK Team

[Daniel Szabo]

Hello Tyler,

Thank you for your answer.

We do not have any control over publishers, since it's an AdSense/AFG account. I don't think publishers are aware of this issue at all.
If you check previous posts in this thread, I pointed out that in a webapp (when navigator.standalone is set) iPhones are not limited to fullscreen videos and skippable videos actually work as intended. (By faking the useragent string the SDK will render the skippable videos.) Also, in iOS 10 fullscreen limitation has been removed, so skippable videos render correctly even in browser mode (Safari).

Thank you for considering possible solutions,

Daniel

[Tyler Sidell (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi Daniel,

Currently, we do not support this particular use case but we are discussing options as a team.  In the meantime, is there any way that the iOS IMA SDK will fit your needs?

Thanks,

Tyler Sidell

IMA SDK Team

[Daniel Szabo]

Hello,

According to the release history setDisableCustomPlaybackForIOS10Plus has just been added to the HTML5 API and the documentation states "This enables TrueView skippable ads".
However, skippable ads are still disabled on iPhones/iPods running iOS 10, no matter if custom playback is disabled or not, or a custom video player is passed to the AdDisplayContainer, or playsinline attribute is set: all configurations will result in AdError 1005: "The provided ad type: skippablevideo is not supported".
Skippable videos are supported on iPads, but they have been supported prior to iOS 10 too.

So I'm confused what this new setting actually does.

You can reproduce the issue by opening Video Suite Inspector on an iPhone and passing your sample "Single Skippable Inline" tag to it.

Any chance, skippable videos will be supported on iPhones?

Thanks,

Daniel

[Chris Feldman (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi Daniel,

You're right that our documentation states that True View skippable ads should be supported on iOS 10. I'm testing now and also seeing issues. The team is going to investigate this issue and I will send you an update as soon as I have any more information.

Regards,

Chris Feldman

IMA SDK Team

[Albert Eltawil]

@Chris: Any updates on this issue?

[Chris Feldman (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi, 

A fix has been submitted for the skippable ads support on devices running iOS 10. The fix should be available in our future releases. Please follow our release history page for more updates.

Regards,

Chris Feldman

IMA SDK Team

[Daniel Szabo]

Hello Chris,

Since the release of SDK version 3.168.0 skippable ads are working on iPhones running iOS 10.
However, they are still disabled on iPod Touch devices ("The provided ad type: skippablevideo is not supported").

iPod Touch devices are basically iPhones from POV of HTML5, so can you please lift this limitation and enable skippable ads for iPods too?

Thanks,

Daniel

[Chris Feldman (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi Daniel,

You're right that skippable ads should be working on iPod touch devices. I just ran some tests and I'm also seeing the "The provided ad type: skippablevideo is not supported" message. I'm going to bring this to the rest of our team for further investigation. I will let you know as soon as I have an update.

Regards,

Chris Feldman

IMA SDK Team

[psapa...@cmvocento.com]

Chris

Can you tell me news about fix skippablevideo in IOS 10+ ?

Thanks

Chers

[Chris Feldman (IMA SDK Team)]

Hi,

The method getDisableCustomPlaybackForIOS10Plus should be used to check whether disabling custom playback is active. In order to actually set custom playback as disabled, you need to use setDisableCustomPlaybackForIOS10Plus(true). In addition to disabling custom playback, to activate skippable ads on iOS, you also need to use the 'playsinline' attribute on your video element.

Let me know if you continue to have issues.

Regards,

Chris Feldman

IMA SDK Team

[arun lal]

Hi Chris

I tried using setDisableCustomPlaybackForIOS10Plus(true) along with playsinline also set to true. But I observe that the adcontainer is loaded but the ad playback never starts and it throws the following error.

[ima.bridge.AdsManagerWrapper] AdError while processing a message AdError 1005: The provided ad type: skippablevideo is not supported.

Please advice.

Regards

Arun

[Deepika Uragayala (IMA SDK Team)]

Hey Arun,

It seems like you posted the same issue on the other thread. However, I would like you to send the - Ad Tag, device and network logs including from Charles and device information for us to try and reproduce the issue on our end. Also, I would suggest that you continue the discussion on the other thread to avoid duplicate responses.

Regards,

Deepika Uragayala

IMA SDK Team

[Daniel Szabo]

Hello,

We have observed the same behavior: skippable videos not supported on iPhone for AFG.

In case of AFG, there is no video element to pass to the AdDisplayContainer, so there is no 'playsinline' attribute.

However, we discovered that the following workaround (aka hack) would solve the issue: you can use a dummy video element created on the fly using document.createElement() and set 'playsinline' using setAttribute.

It would be good though, if the SDK didn't require this hack in case of games and assumed 'playsinline' is true if no video element is present.

Regards,

Daniel