[Update] YouTube for iOS released today!

Hey guys, I've been away for a while, but I'm trying to get back into the swing of blogging again. I've still got those reviews that I talked about coming up, so I promise I haven't given up!

Anyway, those of you that are in the know about what is coming up with Apple & iOS 6 will know that Apple has gotten rid of the default Google Maps and YouTube apps on their iDevices due to some hard feelings between the two companies (and because Apple is coming out with its own mapping solution, which will apparently have some teething problems.) Earlier this morning Google's official YouTube app appeared on the Apple AppStore (free).

(I had a bit of difficulty finding the app this morning,
so try clicking on the link above if you are too.)

UPDATE:
11:05am, I have just been reading more about the app & it turns out that thousands mores videos are now available to watch because YouTube is able to show adverts before a video starts to play. I guess this means the annoying 'Unable to play video' message on tonnes of YouTube videos will be a thing of the past?

Upon installing, you are prompted to sign in with your Google/YouTube credentials, which gives you access to your subscriptions & the like. I've only had a couple of minutes playing around with it, but I can already tell it's a lot faster than the default application already installed on my iPhone. A video that I watched loaded much faster, too.

(The new app has a cleaner, more simple user interface.)

I'm not sure how this app will work with embedded YouTube videos on mobile Safari or Chrome (previously YouTube videos opened in the default application automatically), but I'm sure the solution will be satisfactory. If at worst, the videos will just play embedded inside the browser, which I actually find a lot easier than flipping between different applications.

The advantages of Google having a separate application (for Google Maps, too, which should be appearing any day now) is that they have complete control over the content of the app and can update whenever they see necessary- previously updates, and to my knowledge there haven't been any major updates since the first iPhone in 2007, would have to be done through a full iOS refresh. Which isn't all that often.

Apple is throwing a little bit of a party tomorrow & is expected to announce the highly desired iPhone 5, amongst other rumours such as updated iPod nanos, a potential iPad Mini & Retina 13-Inch MacBook Pros.

(Notice the '5' in the shadow? Very subtle, haha.)

The iPhone 5 is rumoured to have a larger, 4 inch screen and thinner, all-metal unibody. Apple is also lkely to reveal extra, iPhone 5-exclusive, features of iOS 6. Just how Siri was for the 4S in iOS 5.

Stay tuned! I'm due an upgrade and will either be getting the iPhone 5 or the Nokia Lumia 920:

Which appeals to me because of my obsession for the colour yellow, & because there are whispers that this phone will be an exclusive for Everything Everywhere's brand new 4G network. My inner geek just died and went to cellular heaven.

Hope you're all good, expect reviews and a music blog soon!

Thanks for reading :)

AB x