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YouTube cuts support to older iOS devices and smart TVs
Google has decided that it is no longer worth supporting YouTube on older devices, so the company has announced that it will be pulling the plug on several outdated systems, including older Apple TVs, iOS devices, and smart TVs.
“As we upgrade the YouTube Data API to bring more features, we’ll begin shutting down the old version on April 20, 2015,” Google wrote on a YouTube support page. “This will result in the current YouTube app not working on certain device models from 2012 and older.”
This year marked the 10-year anniversary of YouTube, which was founded on Valentine’s Day in 2005. The video streaming service has continued to evolve over the past decade, adding livestreaming capabilities, monetizing partnerships and so on.
Google notes that the devices that will no longer be supported include “Sony TVs & Blu-ray Discs, Panasonic TVs & Blu-ray Discs, older iOS devices and devices running older versions of Google TV.”
Some of these devices may still be able to view YouTube content if they have web browsers with Flash or HTML5 capabilities, but many, including first- and second-generation Apple TVs, will no longer be able to stream video from YouTube at all.
Why cut off support?
The primary motivation behind YouTube ditching old devices is the service’s switch to its new DATA API v3, which was announced over a year ago. Third-party apps and devices that use the old API will no longer function with the new system.
“With the recent additions of comments, captions and RSS push notifications, the Data API v3 supports almost every feature scheduled to be migrated from the soon-to-be-turned-down Data API v2,” YouTube wrote on its engineering and developers blog. “The only remaining feature to be migrated is video flagging, which will launch in the coming days. The new API brings in many features from the latest version of YouTube, making sure your users are getting the best YouTube experience on any screen.”
According to Forbes, the shift affects around 100 million devices.
You can view a full list of the affected devices, as well as a few possible workarounds, here.
photo credit: Rego – d4u.hu via photopin cc
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