As Yogi Berra famously said, "It"s deja vu all over again." Just one week after Google was caught cutting out access to Google Maps on the Windows Phone version of Internet Explorer, owners of smartphones using Microsoft"s mobile OS are now having issues accessing YouTube, also owned and operated by Google.
WPCentral.com reports that Windows Phone 8 owners are claiming that when they go to m.youtube.com on their version of IE, they don"t see a list of videos in the browser but rather a prompt to download an app. Even worse news comes when a user tries to push the "Search for app in the Store?” box. The message that follows is rather rude; "Sorry, no apps found." Some third party apps such as MetroTube seem to still work.
Microsoft has created its own "official" YouTube app for Windows Phone but it"s basically a wrapper for the website. As Microsoft just recently pointed out, they have been refused direct access to YouTube"s APIs by Google. You can get around this issue if you switch to "Mobile View" from the default "Desktop View" in IE but that won"t even work for Windows Phone 7 users, who now can"t load YouTube videos in their version of IE at all.
It should be noted that the comments page on WPCentral.com indicates that YouTube still works for some Windows Phone owners. However, we still suspect a number of phone calls and complaints are heading Google"s way right now.
It"s possible that this could be just an error on Google"s part but considering the massive firestorm that hit when the Google Maps issue hit last week (Google later restored Maps on Windows Phone IE) we think that Google just gave Microsoft another bullet point in their continued campaign against Google.
Source: WPCentral.com | Image via WPCentral.com