ios Apple confirms native YouTube app is going bye-bye in iOS 6

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Apple confirms native YouTube app is going bye-bye in iOS 6

YouTube's mobile site still works, and users can still watch through Safari.

If you were one of the remaining loyal users of YouTube's dedicated app on iOS, you're in for a disappointment once iOS 6 is released this fall. Apple confirmed it is dropping the default app from its list, though iOS users will be able to continue watching and interacting with YouTube in other ways.

Developers first began discovering the absence of the native YouTube app after Apple released an update to the iOS 6 beta on Monday afternoon. It wasn't immediately clear why YouTube wasn't included as part of iOS 6 Beta 4, but Apple later issued a statement to the Verge confirming its intent.

"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," the company said.

Indeed, many YouTube aficionados had already begun using YouTube's new and improved mobile site over the default app?which, like Apple's other default apps, you cannot delete from your device. The major downside of doing this?at least up until iOS 6 Beta 4 was released today?was that links to videos that you might click from the Web would still open in the default app whether you wanted them to or not. But once iOS 6 is released to the public, it seems as if YouTube's native app will be gone for good, eliminating this slight annoyance. Users will also be able to continue watching YouTube videos from within Mobile Safari, though we're left wondering whether Apple's Camera app will continue to offer an option to upload your phone's videos to YouTube once iOS 6 is out.

Source: Ars Technica

In other news, iOS 6 beta 4 is out.

[Active.]

No surprise there.

[thealexweb]

An upside of this is that Google can now update it whenever it likes and probably has a much greater freedom over its design, not that it matters to me because Apple has abandoned my device...

[SMELTN]

just put ProTube on the Appstore instead of just on the Cydia market and we will be good. :)

[Techno_Funky]

This is good news, the default one was pathetic.

[The Guvnor]

Yay :)

[Rudy]

The Youtube app was horrible :/ I always hated it

[drazgoosh]

Much easier to use the YouTube mobile site without getting redirected to another app, no matter what kind of phone you're on (Android, iPhone)