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Google staff have created an iPhone-only app to watch YouTube videos with your friends

Google’s famous ’20 percent time’ – where employees could spend the equivalent of one day a week working on a side project of their own choosing – has led to some pretty impressive results, including Gmail, Google Maps and the company’s ad network Adsense.

The latest creation to emerge from the program is an app called Uptime, designed to allow people to watch YouTube videos with remote friends, adding real-time comments and reactions. Somewhat surprisingly, from the company behind Android, the app is currently iPhone-only.

Uptime is a place to share and watch videos together with friends. Easily share your favorite YouTube video and bring friends together to watch, chat, and have fun.

  • Watch videos together with friends
  • Interact and chat while watching videos
  • Share and curate your favorite YouTube videos
  • Get daily video recommendations from friends and people you follow

As TNW observed, this would be a nice addition to the YouTube app itself, rather than everyone having to use a separate one, but it’s a handy place to test the appeal, so perhaps we’ll see the functionality make it into the official app somewhere down the line.

Uptime is a free download from iTunes in the U.S. only for now. Registering currently requires an invitation code, and PIZZA should get you in.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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