YouTube Mobile Gets an Upgrade

It is true that YouTube already has a solid footing in mobile video streaming, with every iOS device and most Android devices coming with a pre-installed native YouTube app. However, these apps have had their fair share of limitations, such as slow load times and subpar video quality. Also, since it is the device makers rather than YouTube that controls the native apps for these smart phones, updates tend to lag behind those made to the main site or even the mobile site. For example, the YouTube app on my Droid X still uses a 5 star rating system to rate videos, whereas m.youtube.com uses the same “like” versus “unlike” system as YouTube.com.

We at Skatter Tech tested out the mobile site and can attest that the upgraded web app is a vast improvement over the native iPhone app. General manager Sharath Shroff noticed a vast improvement in load time when using the mobile site on his iPhone 3GS over the native app, as well as a much higher video quality than he was used to. Unfortunately, I was unable to load videos on the browser using the Droid X for unknown reasons, so I cannot evaluate its performance on that device at this time.

Link: Official Youtube Blog