No YouTube app for new iPhones, iPads

Apple has announced that the next version of its phone and tablet operating system, iOS 6, will not include a built-in YouTube app.

“Our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended, customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store,” Apple said in a one-sentence statement.

{mosads}All iPhones and iPads have been equipped with the app since the first iPhone launched in 2007.

The app, which Apple developed according to YouTube’s standard, lacked many features found on the Google-owned website. It will still be available on older versions of the operating system.

Google and Apple, once closely aligned, have been showing signs of a major split. This marks the second Google-designed app that Apple has eliminated from iOS 6; the tech giant also announced at its developers conference in June that it was planning to dump Google’s maps application.

While Apple’s relationship with Google might be cooling, it has warmed up to Facebook. Apple announced in June that iOS 6 would feature integration of the social network. iOS 5 already features Twitter integration.

The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was quoted as saying that he was willing to go “thermonuclear” on Google after it challenged iOS products with the Android mobile operating system. Jobs viewed the Android system as “grand theft,” according to Steve Jobs, an authorized biography.

The companies are two of the most successful in the tech sector. Google is the world leader in searches, and Apple made news a year ago when the BBC reported that it had more cash on hand than the federal government.