Mobile version of YouTube launched using HTML5

The mobile version of Google's video-sharing site received an upgrade recently. The new m.youtube.com has a handful of new features, including fine quality video playback in the browser using HTML5. Surf to YouTube’s mobile site along  any modern mobile with a browser that supports HTML5's tag and you will notice that when you click a video thumbnail, the video loads within a new browser-based player.

The old site on an iPhone used to launch the YouTube local app, taking you out of the browser. In reality the 1st time you visit the site on an iPhone, you will be pushed to install a bookmark on your house screen. This is likely a step to move folk away from the YouTube iPhone app and toward the internet-based app. The switch to an HTML5-based mobile experience comes once a week after YouTube published a public memo saying one or two places where HTML5 falls short when put next to Flash for delivering video. But Flash now isn't a choice on mobiles.

Hence while HTML5-based video playback may not be YouTube's first choice on the desktop (although the Corporation has been experimenting with it), it makes complete sense on mobiles. The entire mobile YouTube site has been optimised for the tiny screen, and the experience on the telephone is now much tighter. For one, the video quality is noticeably better, and the web-app's interface has been updated to appear like a local app, with enormous, touch screen-friendly button icons. There are new features that are not in the YouTube iPhone app. The library is better to navigate, the search box recommends results as you type, videos can be bookmarked like web pages, and tops and the new like-style ratings have been added. The mobile site defaults to H.264 playback, which is curious since Google lately helped launch the new WebM video project.

WebM, which is enjoying support in browsers from Opera, Microsoft, Mozilla and Google, is designed to supply an open source alternative option to H.264 (and potentially even a favored standard) for video online. But it is not so surprising, considering that H.264 is more widely supported than the brand spanking new WebM on mobiles. And given Apple's faithfulness to H.264, which is the local format in QuickTime and iTunes, the possibilities are slim-to-none that Mobile Safari or Safari will support WebM in the future. Here is where web programs win. If Google were to choose to start serving both tastes of video, it might just be a matter of throwing a switch. YouTube can add whatever features it wants much faster, since it just has to update a domain rather than a local app that needs a download.