This is the second article in the series App of the Week series.
With the release of iOS 6 came lot of changes. One of the seemingly minor and yet amazing ones is that they removed the generic and very worthless YouTube appswith a custom made YouTube app by Google. The old version did work find when watching videos, but navigation, searching, and interacting was very low quality. The latest release of the application is definitely a must download.
The Good
The new iOS app is robust and what we want from a new release. Here are some of its best qualities.
- User Integration The preloaded app did not have user subscription capability nor could you view the subscriptions you already had. This update allows you to not only quickly find the views from authors you like, but add new ones later.
- Visual Layout The newest app update has made a core shift from simply using text to describe the video with a small thumbnail to making the thumbnail the highlight. People are much more visually driven now and this is definitely appealing.
- Watch And Read Maybe the biggest adjustment is the fact that when the mobile device is up and down, you can watch the video while reading the description, checking out related videos, or reading and leaving your own comments. Turn it 90 degrees and the video maximizes. Beautifully constructed!
The Bad
While this update was a long time coming, there is still a good deal to be done for the future of YouTube on iOS.
- iPad Optimization For some reason, the iPad has been ignored while the smaller devices did get the proper update. Interesting that they cater to that screen size when the larger devices may have more wow factor.
- No 720p Option With the small screen size, we are seeing that Google is limiting the streaming size to less than 720p because the data rates would be hit hard. Unfortunate.
- Facebook Sharing Bug Currently you are allowed to share to several different social media networks, yet it seems that the Facebook option is broken. Would you honestly release an app that is only 95% done?
What do you think of the YouTube app?
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