YouTube's iOS App Just Dropped Support for These iPhone Models

[MNWildFan]

That hardly seems like a downside at this point.

Exactly

And last I checked, even if you don't have YouTube Premium, on certain browsers, you can swipe the playing video to the background and it'll still continue to play without needing Premium (as iPhone and iPad can do PiP from videos played from a browser by design)

 

[Powerbooky]

...
Users with these older devices can still access YouTube through their web browser by visiting m.youtube.com, but the experience won't match the native app's functionality.

No, actually the web version is better - all the ad-inserts can be blocked here. I don't mind sponsor messages in the channel, but the sheer amount of extra (totally irrelevant and unrelated) inserted ads by Google in the Youtube app is just way beyond annoying.

 

[haemolysis]

Web browser is a little clunky, but being able to use Sponsorblock, Adblock, and PIP, makes it a far superior experience to the app.

 

[mrochester]

Web browser is a little clunky, but being able to use Sponsorblock, Adblock, and PIP, makes it a far superior experience to the app.

This is my setup too, but with stop the madness.

I do find it hilarious that it is better value for money to buy stop the madness in the App Store than it is to pay for a YouTube premium subscription. If only Google weren’t so greedy with their pricing and discriminating against certain countries.

 

[svish]

Don't think it is a big issue as access is possible through the website. Anyway good to know about this.

 

[FeliApple]

Bunch of idiots. What happened? They used to support a million iOS versions. Now every device I have barring my 16 Plus and 11th-gen iPad is incompatible, even my Air 5. Why? Why would you do this? Don’t blame developers they said. It’s not their fault, they said.

 

[steve09090]

Bunch of idiots. What happened? They used to support a million iOS versions. Now every device I have barring my 16 Plus and 11th-gen iPad is incompatible, even my Air 5. Why? Why would you do this? Don’t blame developers they said. It’s not their fault, they said.

Because Google are exactly the same as Apple. They want to restrict access to Apple devices in the same way Apple try and keep people in their ecosystem.

 

[obito12510]

Google and YouTube are both capitalists and somewhat dictatorial, why do they upgrade YouTube to a new version but require upgrading iOS to 16.0 or higher? It's ridiculous. Over the years, what outstanding features have they upgraded YouTube to besides fixing basic bugs, minor bugs... but they force old iPhone users using iOS lower than 16.0 (or 15.0, 14.0..etc.) or new iPhone users using older iOS (for some reason do not want to upgrade iOS...) to upgrade iOS while the iOS version does not support those devices, the important thing to know is that from iOS 15.0 or higher to the latest iOS version of iOS 20.0 or higher is not too long, but for YouTube,the fact that they do not need to update iOS to 16.0 or higher to download YouTube or update YouTube is not too difficult. Does upgrading iOS mean your iPhone will be more powerful? Upgrading iOS sometimes just makes your iPhone hotter, slower or consumes more battery (not to mention some other problems...). Youtube is an indispensable application on the phone used to watch videos, listen to music, comment, download and upload videos, find the desired videos... Videos on Youtube are currently mostly 1080p resolution, a few videos can reach 2K or 4K resolution. Currently, old iPhones can still watch, search and comment on such videos.

I am very upset and hate to say this, but please YouTube and Google with Apple, please do not force YouTube to upgrade with the damn condition that you have to upgrade iOS to download or use YouTube, change the condition to upgrade YouTube without having to upgrade the iOS version (at least allow downloading and using older versions of YouTube). A bunch of despicable capitalists
Otherwise I will have to find another application like YouTube, anyone using an old iPhone like me, does anyone know of an application like YouTube?

 

[sdfox7]

Meanwhile TikTok has millions of downloads and reviews on the App Store and only requires iOS 12 .

This is just planned obsolescence to get people to upgrade to new devices, plain and simple. Silicon Valley and the device manufacturers are in bed together.

People that have downloaded the app in the past can simply download the last compatible version. For those who can't, it's fewer eyeballs and ad dollars for YouTube/Google. However, the YouTube app on iPhone 6 simply redirects to the web browser, and works fine.