14 DAY TRIAL // In a post on its official blog, YouTube announced a new application with innovative features that would work offline and provide cost-effective services. YouTube Go is essentially a version of the main YouTube app, but it makes sure that users don't spend all of their mobile data while watching videos.
The blog post mentions that YouTube engineers, designers and researchers found a need for a more cost-effective version of YouTube, especially in countries like India where mobile data isn't cheap and videos have trouble streaming smoothly, especially during peak hours.
The team from YouTube even traveled to India in order to collect ideas, and tested prototypes with people across 15 cities. The new app is supposedly faster and more relevant than the previous YouTube app.
The team built YouTube Go from scratch focusing on four distinct concepts oriented towards the users' needs. The app will be more relatable, in the sense that it will provide users with video recommendations and an interface that makes it easy to navigate through sections.
It will also work with low or no connectivity whatsoever. Most likely, it will integrate the smart offline feature which allows users to schedule videos to be saved offline later. In addition, the app is expected to be cost-effective and reduce data usage.
YouTube Go will be made available widely in early 2017
Another neat feature will allow users to share videos with friends nearby, without using any data. This means that users would be able to send and receive videos even when they're offline.
YouTube has announced that the application will gradually roll out over the coming months, with the intention to improve its features based on user feedback. It will be made available widely early next year and users can sign up to receive notifications about when it will be launched.
