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Google and Microsoft agree to play nicely on a new YouTube Windows Phone app

It's all sunshine and lollipops over in Windows Phone land today.

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windows-phone-youtube-app

It’s all sunshine and lollipops over in Windows Phone land today.

Google announced that it’s ending its fight over Microsoft’s YouTube Windows Phone app and that the two companies will be working together on a revamped version.

In a statement, Google says it will be “working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube’s API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks.” Additionally, Google says Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app with an earlier version for now.


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Microsoft caught fire for its unauthorized YouTube app last week, which notably blocked YouTube’s ads, let users download videos, and didn’t respect platform requirements set by video authors. For its part, Microsoft said that the app was in response to Google blocking access to YouTube’s APIs, which prevented it from offering a fully featured app on Windows Phone. Google simply called Microsoft’s app a violation of YouTube’s terms of service.

Microsoft likely knew what it was getting into when it released its rogue YouTube app. During Google’s I/O keynote last week, Google chief executive Larry Page bemoaned the negativity in the technology world as well as the lack of decent interoperability between services. While it made for a great speech, Page’s comments were somewhat hypocritical given Google’s refusal to let Microsoft properly access YouTube’s APIs.

Now, at least, Microsoft has Google’s attention.