With iOS 6 Beta 4 released today, Apple has removed the native YouTube app. According to a statement by Apple themselves,
Our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended, customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store.
Read on for more information.
Along with this statement came uproar in the Twitter community and many popular sites. It is clear why: Apple and Google are separating themselves more and more. Gone in iOS 6 is Google Maps and now YouTube. While this could mean native, and possibly better apps are to come from Google, you are never sure. Google can easily just make the YouTube app similar to the m.youtube.com interface, which isn’t very pleasing. In the past, Google apps on iOS haven’t been the best.
Personally, I feel Apple screwed up getting rid of Google Maps and YouTube. I understand the license has ended for YouTube, but Google Maps is an excellent resource. Google Maps have been around for years, with tons of data and street view. Although Apple’s Maps are going to be gorgeous, some features are missing such as transit directions and street view. I heavily rely on Google’s transit directions as I live in New York City, and although Apple is handing transit directions off to third party apps, some popular apps like HopStop and Smart Ride just don’t compare. I really hope Google makes a very similar maps app. Apple’s new philosophy seems to be “let’s make it beautiful, not robust.”
Back to YouTube. I gave up on the youtube.com after integrating their new list-style subscription box. It just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Immediately, I found the native YouTube app on the iPad much better. My subscriptions were presented in a grid style, and gave me all the features I needed. Besides, watching videos full-screen on the new iPad’s Retina Display is great. Something major that the native YouTube app lacks, for the better, is ads. There are no ads at all found in the YouTube app. This is certainly going to be changed if Google releases their own YouTube app. I feel like this is a great reason for Google to not renew the license. If they renew the license, Apple still has control over the app, therefore there would (hopefully) be no ads. But YouTube is full of ads, and if they can add them to iOS devices, content creators part of Adsense will make more money. While this is better for content creators, it is worse for content viewers, such as myself.
The only thing I won’t miss about the native YouTube app is the low quality when streaming over 3G on the iPhone. However, I almost always use my iPad to watch videos, so it isn’t that major.
iOS 6 has given me a few things to think about before updating. While I would miss out on many new features, on my iPad, where I mainly watch videos and browse the web, I probably won’t update to iOS 6 so soon. For me, updating will most likely be dependent on the quality of the YouTube app Google plans to release. However, on my iPhone, I will be forced to adopt iOS 6 if I upgrade to the new iPhone coming out soon, and that day will be a very sad moment for my transit directions.
So, what do you think? Are you going to still update to iOS 6? Do you feel that the additions outweigh the removal of some Google features? Leave your comments below!
