Windows Phone YouTube Returns: Barebones Again

This week the folks at Microsoft appear to have given control back to the Google team when it comes to the unofficial-official YouTube app for Windows Phone devices. Here existing on Windows Phone 8, the app has been part of a battle between companies for several months, resulting in several iterations of said app for the masses and frequent take-downs in-between. Google has let Microsoft know that they've not been pleased with past iterations of the app, and Microsoft has had to take the app down and modify it several times over.

This week's release of the app has the experience reverted back to an older, less full YouTube for the Microsoft-made Windows Phone device environment. Here you'll have the YouTube icon launching you in into m.YouTube.Com, the same experience you'd get if you simply made yourself a homescreen shortcut to that address from a web browser.

This iteration of the "app" goes by version number 3.2, suggesting that it is, indeed, the newest version of the Windows Phone YouTube experience, barebones once more. Google is apparently satisfied with this version of the app as they've not yet killed access to it using their go-to remote-kill access key method of destruction. Meanwhile the likes of MetroTube, myTube, and PrimeTube are still in the running – unofficial YouTube apps the lot of them.

We must fully agree with WPCentral in their assessment of the idea that this newest YouTube app for Windows Phone is not one we'd recommend working with. Here lies the last we may ever hear from Google on the subject – nothing like a reliance on a competitor's app ecosystem to get your mobile operation in on the fun for the public, yes?