App Review: Stick It!

With smartphones and tablets today having better screens and faster processors, watching video has become a much better experience on the go.  The problem with watching videos is that they take up the whole screen and block your notification bar. I have finally found a video player that works in a windowed view to allow you to multitask while playing video, Stick It! by MBFG.

I was recently watching an episode of All About Android where Eileen Rivera had this app for her Android Arena pick.  Since I watch podcasts all of the time I thought I would give it a try.  Immediately I was impressed by how well the app works on an Android phone or tablet.

Stick It and Browsing

It opens up a video but allows you to still open apps and use your device while the video is still playing.  I can resize the window and move it around so that I can still work while watching.  They have also made the app so that you can minimize it to the notification bar but have the audio still play.  If you watch videos frequently on your phone you know that with most video players you cannot minimize the video app without killing the playback.  When you want to go back to the video in Stick It you open notifications and click it.  The video portion resumes playing without it skipping a beat.

Stick It is really like running a Windows app. It is a floating window with a video process running in it.  In fact, you can run multiple windows with videos, all at the same time.  I don't know why you would want to do that but it is possible.  It plays in the background when you have other apps open and supports streaming from HTTP and MMS sources.  I typically will be watching a video and can now open emails or text messages and respond all while I am still watching the playback. Before, I would be watching a video and hear the message notification come in but I had to stop playback to switch over.  Stick It eliminates that interruption.

I like that I can minimize the video to the notification bar and turn off the screen.  This is another big failure of most video player apps.  If you need to stop the video it is simply done by clicking on the screen where the video is playing.  Touch it again and playback resumes.  This is a great way to control the video.  However, I do wish it had easier scrub controls for the video playback.  On the phone, the bar to allow you to fast forward or backup the video sometimes is hard to grab.  I would also like to have a 30 second jump button.  I find those useful on podcasts especially when you want to jump ahead on news stories or ads.  Even having the progress scrub bar more easily controllable would be helpful.  I hope that they address that in future updates.

Stick It is $1.49 in the Google Play store.  If you watch two or more videos a week you need to download this app.  It works on Android 2.2 and higher devices.  On a tablet Stick It is a great app to have.  You can easily watch videos while doing other work.  They have a workaround that will let you stream YouTube videos through the app as well.  They support 3gp, avi, divx, mp4, mov and many more formats.  You are not compromising features to get the ability to multitask! It is a full featured video player.  The playback is better than many third party players I have tied.  In fact, I prefer it over the built in Doggcatcher video player for performance and quality.

Other than the control bar I really have no complaints about Stick It.  It is a great app and cool concept.  MBFG has several apps that all float like this including a browser that is windowed like Stick It.  If I wasn't so addicted to Chrome I would be running their browser too.  Go give this app a try.  If you need to multitask and watch videos this is the app for you.

Stick It multitaksing