Aimed at smartphones like the iPhone and Android devices

Jul 8, 2010 07:25 GMT  ·  By

YouTube has introduced an updated version of its mobile site targeted mostly at smartphones. The new website makes ample use of HTML5 and YouTube boasts that it’s superior to native apps, by which it means the iPhone app, though it won’t name it specifically. The mobile site is now mostly on par with the regular site and includes some of the newer features like search suggestions, creating playlists and the possibility to ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ a video.

“[W]e’re rolling out an updated version of the mobile site,” Andrey Doronichev, Product Manager at YouTube, announced. “As the world continues to go mobile, we think this is a great improvement for users who want a more consistent YouTube across many devices, no matter where they are. We're launching in English only today, but will be rolling it out in other languages in the coming months. You can access the latest YouTube mobile site from your iPhone or Android browser.”

Mobile usage has grown considerably in recent years. YouTube says that people watched 160 percent more videos in 2009 than in the year before. At this point, YouTube streams 100 million videos to mobile devices every day. That’s well bellow the 2 billion videos it streams daily overall, but mobile is starting to make a difference.

The new mobile site takes advantage of the latest smartphones with HTML5-capable browsers. If you’re visiting m.youtube.com on your Android phone or iPhone you’ll get redirected to the new version. The site is faster than ever, YouTube says, but the first thing users will notice is the new UI with large, touch-friendly buttons, like most smartphone-dedicated websites have now.

It features the new like / dislike buttons, which replaced the old five-star system earlier this year on the site. You can also save the video to a playlist and share it, by email only. YouTube says that the new features and speed trump what is available in native apps and the emphasis, as you can see in the video, is on getting people to replace the native app with the web version.