YouTube iOS App Updated With iMessage Support for Easily Sharing Videos

The YouTube iOS app today was updated to version 12.38, bringing a swipe-to-remove gesture for videos in playlists, as well as introducing support for iMessage. After updating the app you should see YouTube appear as a new icon in your Messages app drawer, and after tapping on it you can scroll to view your recently-watched videos, search YouTube for a specific video, and tap to send it to a friend.

After sharing the video, YouTube links work the same as they did before, with the ability to watch the videos directly within Messages without having to leave the app, but there is a new player for content sent through the Messages app. You can tap on a video and it will open up into a full-screen player with playback controls, a watch later button, recommended videos, and an "open app" button to jump directly to YouTube.

Prior to today's update, to share a YouTube video in Messages you had to find it in the YouTube app, tap the share button, choose Messages, and then type in a contact. You could also copy the video link and paste it into the text message field within Messages.

Check out our guide on iOS 11's Messages app drawer redesign if you aren't familiar with navigating the updated section of Apple's texting app.

Tag: YouTube

Top Rated Comments

(View all)

LordQ

9 months ago

This is nice, wish more people used iMessage and less WhatsApp.

Rating: 3 Votes

deany

9 months ago

Youtube is great (with adguard), haven't watch TV in 7 years.
What an inspired purchase by google //www.macrumors.com/2006/10/09/google-acquires-youtube/, and a snip at the price. Article by Arnie before he semi-retired with his millions! good on him.

Rating: 2 Votes

Nothlit

9 months ago

Never had an issue with YouTube or AirPods. Works perfectly for me

It can be hard to notice with just spoken voices, but anything percussive (hammers, drums, knocking, doors slamming, etc.) you can tell. The audio is late. There are also lots of helpful sync test (click track) videos on YouTube. I have played several of them in the app and also in Safari. In the app, sync is off by 100-200 milliseconds. In Safari on the YouTube web site, exact same video, sync is fine. Clearly the issue is with the YouTube app.

Rating: 1 Votes

SoundJudgment

9 months ago

If Apple would get off their high-horse and simply allow Google's VP9 Codec usage natively in iOS and Safari... there would be less complications in YouTube support.

Rating: 1 Votes

mfvisuals

9 months ago

So they're adding these features, but still forcing a paywall for trivial features such as being able to play the audio from videos in the background when switching to other apps. I understand that a lot of people use that feature to listen to music through the app. However, for those of us who like to listen to news shows and be able to switch to other apps while listening, this is incredibly annoying.

Rating: 1 Votes

sza

9 months ago

Still no picture in picture?

Rating: 1 Votes

[ Read All Comments ]