OK, so Apple will drop its YouTube app from iOS 6, the new version of its iPhone operating system due out this fall. Cue loud and histrionic coverage about Apple's thermonuclear war, as the late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs put it, vs. Google and its Android mobile software.
Except it seems likely that script is off the mark. Here's why: Most people may not realize it, but that YouTube app on their iPhones is actually designed by Apple, a holdover from the iPhone's introduction in 2007, when all the apps were Apple's and YouTube was a big draw. (So big that one of Apple's original iPhone ads highlighted YouTube, as in the video above.) Problem is, since then, Apple has appeared to do relatively little to advance the app, which now looks old (almost as old as that TV used in the app's icon, at least on my impossibly old iPhone).
Even more important from the point of view of Google and the pro content producers on YouTube, the Apple YouTube app doesn't allow ads to be run against all those billions of videos views a month that YouTube draws on mobile devices. So search for "Lady Gaga" on your iPhone and what do you see? Well, Lady Gaga, but very little from official channels such as ladygagaofficial, which means very few official videos. Contrast that to a search on "Lady Gaga" on YouTube.com, and official videos are there, along with ads all over the place.
Why the huge difference? Because she can't run ads on the iPhone YouTube app, and no ads means no money generated. Multiply that by thousands of artists, movies, and all kinds of content that advertisers want to run ads against--ads that will bring in up to $3.6 billion in revenues this year, by Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney's recent estimate for YouTube. Now you realize why Google may not mind much that the creaky old adless Apple app is heading for the trash can icon. Update: Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback provides an insider's view on why just about everyone benefits from this move, regardless of which company was responsible.
Google hints at this in its only official statement on the matter: "We are working with Apple to ensure we have the best possible YouTube experience for iOS users." It's not clear when Google's own app for iOS 6 will come out, since it still will require Apple's approval, of course, but it's hard to imagine it isn't already coded in its entirety and awaiting the fabled iPhone 5 as early as next month.
Indeed, Apple helpfully took the liberty of spilling the beans that the search giant is indeed working on its own app in a 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."
It's tempting to call this another battle in the ongoing war between Google and Apple. And in Apple's no longer providing YouTube such prominent placement as a default app, perhaps there's a small skirmish involved here as well (if not as pointed as Apple's decision to drop Google's mapping app). But it's more likely that Google "ended" the license for Apple's YouTube app because it will prove to be far more lucrative to do its own.
