GLOBAL – It only popped out the other day, but I’ve just been playing with the new YouTube app for S60 and have to say, I’m mightily impressed. Slick user interface, new approach to scrolling through vids (sideways, instead of down) nice use of AJAX-style transitions and an all round top experience.
Functionality is kept pretty simple at the minute, with more features promised in the future. The app is a weighty download (2MB) so you might want to make sure you’re in a WiFi hotspot before you download it – that said, you should make sure you’re on an unlimited data plan, anyway, if you’re planning to watch videos on your device.
Fire up the app and you’re met a big search box and three buttons: Top Rated, Most Viewed and Most Recent. Flicking through the buttons is easy (just right or left scroll on an E71) and when you’ve selected one you do the same thing to scroll through the videos for that section (right or left scroll). I was using my home WiFi network to watch videos and it was very speedy, though I haven’t tried it on a 3G network yet. Video has been optimised, depending on how you’re accessing though, so it should perform just as well on a 3G network.
The videos look very good on my E71’s screen, which is the most important bit though the video controls are paired down to simple volume and play controls, the former can be manipulate through the d-pad (up and down) or your volume keys.
For me, this has probably changed how I use YouTube. I don’t get much time during the day to watch videos at my computer, but I do spend time on trains, waiting in line and various other places where Twitter doesn’t quite kill enough time. Will YouTube on my phone? It just might. How about you?
Here’s a video from the guys at YouTube showing off the new app on an N95 (as you can see, the buttons are arranged differently, depending on the screen orientation – mine were horizontal)