Microsoft: Compliant YouTube Windows Phone 8 app coming, meanwhile take the dreadful old version back

Following a cease and desist letter sent by Google little over a week ago, today, Microsoft reaches out to me and announces a new update for its homebrew YouTube Windows Phone 8 app. You might want to contain that burning desire to hit the "Update" button though.

"Microsoft and YouTube are 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", says the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation. This comes two days after the passing of the deadline to remove the app from the Windows Phone Store.

The deadline was imposed by Google alongside the cease and desist letter, and says that the app must also restrict the ability to download content and enforce playback restrictions "on certain platforms". The former requirement is already fulfilled in the update released two ago.

I asked Microsoft if the upcoming version will also comply with Google's remaining grievance, but the software giant refused to comment: "Nothing more to add at this point, sorry".

Now here's the bad news. "Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time", says the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation. Ouch! The software giant tells me that the version in question is the dreadful pre-May 8 build which was basically the mobile YouTube website dressed as an app.

At the time of writing this article, Microsoft pulled the non-compliant YouTube for Windows Phone 8 app from the Store and has yet to replace it with the old, but complaint, version. The latter, however, does not show ads which is a tad ironic considering Google's grievances.

Today, Microsoft and Google prove that working together is entirely possible, however this only appears to be the case when one company negatively affects the other. Let's hope that this rekindled relationship can smooth the bumps in the road towards Google-branded apps on Windows Phone 8 and more Microsoft-developed software on Android.

The takeaway is that, in order to gain Google's approval, Microsoft must offer an inferior YouTube experience on the tiled operating system. The Windows Phone 8 app no longer offers any advantages over its Android and iOS counterparts. But, hopefully, Google will allow YouTube for Windows Phone 8 to upload content to the popular video-sharing website.

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