On: War? YouTube app disappears from iOS 6 beta 4 as A...

[objclxt]

Apple gave a statement to The Verge, which basically says their licence from Google expired: "our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended".

I know Google are hiring iOS software engineers for YouTube right now in London, so I'm sure there will be some official native offering appearing in the future.

[smackfu → objclxt]

Or more likely, "we chose not to renew our license".

[siglesias → objclxt]

Of course one would imagine that the date of expiration was known at the time they announced iOS 6 with YouTube in it.

[Tyrannosaurs → siglesias]

I'm guessing that either they were in negotiations for a potential renewal / extension to the license or (far more likely) they didn't want headlines about their feud with Google taking attention away from the product announcement.

[addlepate → siglesias]

When did they announce that?

[siglesias → addlepate]

iOS 6 was announced at WWDC on 11 June this year.

[shinratdr → siglesias]

They never mentioned YouTube on stage though, it just wasn't yet removed from the developer previews. That's like saying Apple advertised Mountain Lion as having the 32-bit kernel because it was present in DP1.

I have little doubt they were planning to remove it the entire time and it just wasn't a high priority issue until the license expired in between beta 3 and beta 4.