ALEXANDRIA, VA. — Google, which owns the popular video sharing site YouTube, announced some time ago that it would discontinue support for the YouTube app in older iOS devices such as iPads and iPhones. Also included in this notification are certain devices built before 2012, such as Sony and Panasonic TVs and Blu-ray disk players, as well as devices running older versions of Google TV.
Note that this change affects some Apple TVs that run older versions of the iOS operating system. The change took place yesterday (April 20), so it’s possible that any older iOS device you have no longer has a functioning YouTube app. In many of these cases, it is still possible to access YouTube from a web browser on the device, and video should still play when accessed from a browser. However, some products don’t have a separate browser, and they will have lost YouTube access.
According to Google, the reason for this change is to incorporate improvements and updates to the YouTube Data API to permit new features. These API updates are not supported in versions of iOS below version 7, so all iOS devices running pre-iOS 7 will lose the function of their YouTube app. Updating the operating system to iOS 7 or newer will permit the YouTube app to function again.
If you work for a company or agency that provides your phone and its support, you may either have to do without a YouTube app or request an update to a newer OS. This could be a problem for some organizations that rely on YouTube to distribute their news and event programming.
For more information about this, please click on this YouTube help link.
