Apple today announced that iPhone users will be able to enjoy YouTube’s originally-created content on their iPhones when they begin shipping on June 29. A new Apple-designed application on iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube’s content to iPhone over Wi-Fi or EDGE networks and play it on iPhone’s stunning 3.5 inch display.
iPhone has a special YouTube player that you can launch right from the home screen. So now you can access and browse YouTube videos wherever you go. And when you find a video you want to send your friends, iPhone can even create an email with the link in it for you.
In addition, Apple announced that YouTube is now live on Apple TV. Users can download the free software update using Apple TV’s built-in software update feature, and then easily navigate through YouTube’s familiar video browsing categories or search for specific videos. YouTube members can also log-in to their YouTube accounts on Apple TV to view and save their favorite videos.
“iPhone delivers the best YouTube mobile experience by far,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in the press release. “Now users can enjoy YouTube wherever they are—on their iPhone, on their Mac or on a widescreen TV in their living room with Apple TV.”
To achieve higher video quality and longer battery life on mobile devices, YouTube has begun encoding their videos in the advanced H.264 format, and iPhone will be the first mobile device to use the H.264-encoded videos. Over 10,000 videos will be available on June 29, and YouTube will be adding more each week until their full catalog of videos is available in the H.264 format this fall.
YouTube coming to Apple iPhone:
(So, how do you like YouTube’s new Mac OS X Dock-inspired rollover animation?)
The combination of H.264-encoded videos plus iPhone’s built-in Wi-Fi networking, stunning 3.5 inch display, and custom YouTube application with its multi-touch user interface results in the best YouTube experience on any mobile device.
iPhone will include the built-in Apple-designed YouTube application when it is available in the US on June 29, 2007 in a 4GB model for US$499 and an 8GB model for $599. iPhone will be sold in the US through Apple’s retail and online stores, and through AT&T’s retail stores.
Apple TV users can download the free software update using Apple TV’s built-in software update feature.
MacDailyNews Note: We downloaded and installed the Apple TV software update which went smoothly – albeit with many flashing white apple logos. White Apple logo, black screen, Apple logo, black screen – for about 3 minutes. After updating Apple TV, we sucessfully logged into a YouTube account, searched videos using the Apple Remote and onscreen keyboard, even rated a video from Apple TV. Very interesting and also, we imagine, potentially addictive. The video quality in general is as one would expect from YouTube and the amount of videos currently available pales to the number available via YouTube online, but the experience is surprisingly fun and the videos are more “watchable” than you’d think.