Apple released iOS 6 beta 4 to developers just a short while ago and the biggest change is what’s no longer included: a YouTube app. 9to5Mac was the first publication to pick up on it and naturally, everyone started speculating. Is Apple continuing the war with Google? Is this just a bug? Will it become available in the App Store as a downloadable app when iOS 6 launches?
It turns out the latter is true. Apple confirmed to The Verge that the removal of the YouTube app in beta 4 is on purpose. “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 official statement reads.
Honestly, Apple’s YouTube app was never that good in the first place. You couldn’t view individual YouTube channels, the comments section for videos was limited, and it always took Apple forever to update the app to keep it in sync with any new features Google introduced on youtube.com. It’s for the best that Google take control now by releasing its own version in the App Store.
I wouldn’t just brush this off as just an ending of the agreement between Apple and Google though. Don’t forget Google Maps has vanished from iOS 6 and in its place is Apple’s own mapping solution. Make no mistake the two companies are still very much bitter toward each other and this didn’t exactly ease the tension.