Tap for sound

A listener wrote in last week: the live stream on their site was playing, but silent, and they'd assumed it was broken. They weren't the first. The stream wasn't broken. The browser was.

Every browser now refuses to autoplay video with sound unless the visitor has interacted with the page first, so a live widget that starts on its own has to start muted. That's the right rule for the web and the wrong experience for someone who opened your site to hear the sermon. YouTube's own tiny speaker icon in the corner of the player doesn't help much, especially on a phone.

So the YouTube live player now carries a pill of its own, bottom-left, reading "Tap for sound." One tap turns the sound on at full volume, a green "Sound on" flashes for a second, and the pill is gone.

A few details, because the details are what make it not annoying:

• It only appears while the video is actually playing and actually silent. A paused player, or one the viewer already unmuted through YouTube's controls, never shows it.
• After 8 seconds the label folds away into a small speaker icon that stays put, so it isn't shouting over the whole service.
• Once the sound has been on, it never comes back for that player. If a viewer mutes later, that's their choice and we respect it.
• When a viewer clicks inside YouTube's own controls, the pill steps aside for a few seconds so it's never in the way of the thing they were reaching for.
• On small players it moves up to the top-left, under YouTube's title bar, and shortens to "Sound."

It's on for every YouTube live widget, including Live+, with nothing to configure. YouTube autoplays muted on iPhones too, so it does its job there as well.

For now this is YouTube only. Facebook's player manages its own sound prompt, and Twitch we'll add if people ask.