Losing Its Place on the iPhone, YouTube Introduces a New iPhone App
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
The new iPhone will have a noticeable absence: the little TV screen logo that marks the YouTube app. But YouTube viewers need not despair. On Tuesday, YouTube’s own iPhone app hit the App Store.
Though YouTube lost its prominent place on the iPhone’s home screen, it gained something arguably more important: the ability to show mobile ads. It could not do that before because Apple built and controlled the earlier YouTube app.
But there is a downside for YouTube. Now it has to convince iPhone users to take an extra step to download the app, since it will no longer automatically show up on iPhones. YouTube plans to do that with a mobile and online marketing campaign.
People watch YouTube videos on cellphones a billion times a day, and mobile views make up a quarter of total YouTube views. The challenge will be for YouTube to maintain these numbers without a native iPhone app.
The new app has more videos and features than the Apple version. Since that one was introduced in 2007, it has hardly been updated. YouTube has been adding features to its Android app and mobile Web site — including channels, and the ability to browse other videos while watching one — that it will now include in the iPhone app.
For example, the new app will have tens of thousands more videos than it did before. That’s a small number in YouTube’s universe, but these include some of the most in-demand videos, like Lady Gaga’s official videos. Those haven’t been visible before, because the video makers chose to make money by showing ads.
The new app will also have more sophisticated search and features like swiping to view the channel guide. And it will have new ways to share videos, including on Facebook and Google Plus and via text message.
The app is for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It works on iPads, but is not formatted for the bigger screen. YouTube is working on a new iPad app.
“It’s a new app built by YouTube engineers, to give our iPhone users the best mobile experience,” Andrey Doronichev, head of YouTube mobile, wrote in a YouTube blog post.