Monday, March 31,2008 @ 9:55am
Web-based YouTube coming to iPhone Safari
Apple's anticipated iPhone 2.0 firmware will add some form of YouTube support within Safari, accounts say. Apple recently began distributing an updated version of the iPhone firmware to accompany the latest version of the SDK, and YouTube is now said to be accessible through a plug-in for MobileSafari.app. Traditionally, iPhone and iPod touch users have had to access YouTube from a separate, custom application, which also only links specially-formatted videos.
Still to be confirmed by developers is whether the plug-in simply provides an integrated web version of the current application, or whether it somehow introduces a form of Flash support. The public iPhone version of Safari does not presently support Flash, mainly due to concerns over battery consumption. Adobe, however, has said it is building a variant of the software that will be downloadable after the App Store goes live in June.
Reports additionally indicate that the SDK comes with a new version of WebKit, the rendering engine behind Safari. That component is at v525.15 in the SDK, only a few versions behind the desktop WebKit's v526.1. Recently, an experimental desktop build reached a perfect Acid3 score.