YouTube is the largest video sharing platform on the planet and has one of the most used applications for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. You probably remember that starting with iOS 6 beta 4, from 2012, the native YouTube application disappeared from iPhone and iPad, and then many people said that Apple made the decision to remove it.
Well, a former employee of the YouTube company recently spoke about this very controversial decision at the time, presenting what happened "in the shadows". Hunter Walk is the name of this employee, and he claims that Google decided that the native YouTube application for iPhone and iPad should be withdrawn, those from Mountain View wanting to take back control of the application.
Google decided not to extend an existing contract with Apple to continue offering the YouTube application natively in iOS, paying a serious amount of money annually for this. In 2012 it was said that the launch of Apple Maps and Apple's desire to completely get rid of Google from iOS led to the removal of the native YouTube application, but it seems that Google actually wanted to take control of the application.
YouTube decided in 2012 to withdraw the native iPhone and iPad application
Until 2012, the Apple company totally controlled what was happening in the YouTube application, and those from Google accepted the situation in order for their platform to grow. YouTube was promoted by Apple and mobile phone operators, and Google wanted access to the platform through a native application to be a function that consumers would ask for when buying a smartphone.
The very high popularity of YouTube in 2012 gave Google the confidence to decide to refuse to extend the agreement with Apple to offer the application natively in iOS. Google developed a new YouTube application that it launched in the App Store when iOS 6 was officially available, and since then it has been one of the most downloaded from Apple's application store.
"2012 iOS6, time for YouTube to take back control of our app, which was still Apple-created. Made gutsy move to not renew agreement... great YouTube/Google mobile teams (eng, product, marketing, BD, etc) all worked together. Risky to be removed from all iOS6 devices!… millions & millions of phones – YouTube app disappeared!!! But consumers reinstalled from App Store, promos from other Google apps.”
Basically, Google didn't really know what was happening in the YouTube application when it was accessed by people and it needed this kind of information to improve its service. Apple did not want to give it access to such data, so Google found that the only solution was to withdraw the YouTube application as a native iPhone and iPad, with the risk that the popularity and use of the platform would be affected.
Of course, this did not happen, and YouTube remains the main platform for video sharing on the planet.
