Windows Phone Gets Native YouTube App Despite Microsoft’s Google Complaints

Windows Phone 8 has a native YouTube app despite Microsoft’s complaints that Google was hindering its creation.

Microsoft has produced and published a new YouTube app in the Windows Phone Store, explaining in a blog post that it has been “completely redesigned to make the most of Windows Phone 8 features”.  Previously some features of YouTube were only available to Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone platforms, and Windows Phone users made do with a basic app that sent them to YouTube mobile website.

YouTube reaches Windows Phone

Microsoft had complained to the European Commission and the US Federal Trade Commission, that Google was blocking the production of a native YouTube app for its mobile operating system Windows Phone 8, in order to privilege its own Android operating system.

Legal council Dave Heiner had claimed that Google senior executives had told YouTube  not to allow a native application on Windows phone. But apparently this obstruction has now been lifted.

The new app lets users create playlists, update their profile and manage videos from their phone. Videos, paylists, channels and searches can be pinned to Windows Phone’s Live Tiles,

It also has been linked into Windows Phone’s Kids Corner parental control feature intended to let parents prevent children accessing inappropriate material on their phones.

As far as we can tell, the new app does not come as a result of Google lifting any ban against co-operation with Redmond. Microsoft has said it is the result of “additional engineering effort ” working with existing APIs.

Google hasn’t said anything, and Microsoft has not said whether its initial complaints might have been exaggerated.

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