Google has blocked the YouTube app Microsoft released for Windows Phone once again. This news comes after the two companies had already said they were going to work together, since Google blocked the app previously too. Apparently, they didn’t work together very well.
Microsoft released the updated app two days ago presumably with the intent of complying with Google’s Terms of Service. Yesterday, the app started showing random errors, and today Google said it’s because access has been blocked. The first time everyone pegged the issue as revolving around monetization, so Microsoft and Google joining forces would solve everything. A statement today from a Google spokesperson suggests the company was caught by surprise by Microsoft’s update.
“We’re committed to providing users and creators with a great and consistent YouTube experience across devices, and we’ve been working with Microsoft to build a fully featured YouTube for Windows Phone app, based on HTML5,” said the spokesperson. “Unfortunately, Microsoft has not made the browser upgrades necessary to enable a fully-featured YouTube experience, and has instead re-released a YouTube app that violates our Terms of Service. It has been disabled. We value our broad developer community and therefore ask everyone to adhere to the same guidelines.”
Kudos to Google for not giving special privileges to Microsoft in terms of development just because it’s a large company though. Still, it doesn’t seem like it should be this difficult to agree on a mere YouTube app. Windows Phone users are suffering as a result of the bickering.