After being present in iOS right from the start way back in 2007, the YouTube app has now been removed from iOS 6 in the latest beta 4. Later confirmed by Apple itself to The Verge, it also revealed that the license for the app had ended and that Google is working on a new, standalone app.
Apple’s full statement:
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.
As mentioned, Google is apparently working on a new YouTube app to be released at a later date, but this change certainly cranks the tension between the two companies up a notch, especially after the removal of Google’s Maps from Apple’s mobile platform.
We’ll have to see if any more direct hostilities take place, but the removal of YouTube from iOS is pretty significant: search bar aside, Google services are no longer built into the operating system at all, and it could be the final straw to break the connection between the two tech giants.
