Apple yesterday released a new beta build of the upcoming iOS 6 operating system to registered developers, and almost immediately, the net was alight with the news that the company had removed the YouTube app from iOS 6. Shortly after the news emerged, Apple issued a statement to The Verge stating that their ‘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’.
While this may seem like a reasonable explanation, some people completely freaked out (!) and conspiracy theories abounded about the reasons behind it. The essential question is, however, what is the impact going to be for users of iOS devices? Aside from not having the app native to their OS when they purchase an Apple device, it’s not that big a deal. Google will likely fire a free YouTube app on to the App Store prior to the release of iOS 6, and all people hahve to do is download it. Job done.
Of course, one major advantage to the news is that updates to the YouTube app can now be pushed out much more regularly by Google, which will hopefully result in a better user experience, as the existing YouTube app was a little rudimentary anyway. The new approach is essentially similar to what happens with the existing Google apps on the App Store, such as the Google Search app, and you can safely expect a Google Maps app to appear on the App Store as well.
Panic Over…