“Did you buy a smart TV or set-top box or tablet any time before January 2013? Do you watch YouTube on it, perhaps through an app? Bad news: Google has shut down the feed that pushed content into the app,” Charles Arthur reports for The Guardian. “One person contacted me on Twitter to complain their daughter now couldn’t watch an ad-free YouTube video on his first-generation iPad (that’s 2010) via the YouTube app. Millions of people will be having the same experience. It’s not only iPads; pricey Sony, Samsung and Panasonic ‘smart’ TVs (with built-in app capabilities) were sold by the truckload, and the idea was that they would be the future. ”
“Google explains that this disconnect is because the API – the software interface – for remote access to YouTube has been updated from version 2 to version 3 (v1 was buried back in 2009; v2 surfaced in August),” Arthur reports. “V3, launched in December 2012, offers more capability – though nothing that really matters to someone watching on an iPad or smart TV.”
“There’s now a new dimension to obsolescence. We usually fret about the hardware in our ‘smart’ devices becoming superannuated as the ever-increasing demands of the web or whatever the internet throws up next will leave fixed processor power wheezing,” Arthur reports. “Now we have to worry too about software spigots being turned off.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Select devices manufactured in 2012 and earlier are affected, including:
• iOS 5 and earlier devices
• Apple TV (1st and 2nd gen)
• Sony TVs & Blu-ray Discs
• Panasonic TVs & Blu-ray Discs
• Sony Playstation Vita
• Older set-top boxes (ex, DirectTV)Users of affected devices using iOS 5 and earlier can visit m.youtube.com in their mobile browser to access YouTube.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James” for the heads up.]