Yesterday, we were excited when a major update to the Apple TV introduced a major redesign of the set-top box’s official YouTube app. Today, though, we’re a little less enthused, because it turns out that along with getting a new look, it also got ads.
Over at Recode, Peter Kafka reports:
The most consequential change is that YouTube videos on Apple TV will run with ads. Which also means that all of the videos that run on YouTube (most notably music videos) will now run on YouTube’s Apple TV app.
It also (probably) means that Google’s team doesn’t think Apple is planning a significant overhaul of Apple TV anytime soon, since it (probably) wouldn’t spend the time on an app refresh if it thought the device was going to change radically in the near future.
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber points out the fallacy of that idea, pointing out that it’s Apple — not Google — who designs the apps on the Apple TV.
Kafka makes it sound like the apps for Apple TV are written by the third party companies, like with App Store apps for iOS. I’m pretty sure that’s not the case, and that the YouTube “app” for today’s Apple TV is like the YouTube app for the original iPhone: written by Apple, but designed through some sort of partnership with Google.
So no, the new YouTube app doesn’t signal that Apple or Google don’t expect a new Apple TV to come down the pipeline soon. It does signal, though, that Google finally managed to get its way, and force Apple to start YouTube ads on the Apple TV. A necessary evil, perhaps, but an evil nonetheless.
Of course, on the positive side, since YouTube allows content creators to restrict video playback on devices not capable of displaying ads, this will lead to more videos being available on the Apple TV. But I haven’t personally run into that problem too often; I’d rather have a few less videos than have to watch a 30 second clip before each Grumpycat video I load up.
Source: Recode.net
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
19 responses to “Ads make the Apple TV’s new YouTube app worse than the old one”
Except Gruber was wrong – shocking I know .. (he’s now updated his post)
Big deal. So there’s ads. That’s how Google makes money. Usually you can skip the ads after a few seconds. They need to stop blaming Apple for running those ads in the new version. I’m sure Apple was coerced into running Youtube with those ads and that’s about it. I’ve learned to overlook the ads as being necessary to keep Youtube funded. I’d rather get the ads then have to pay for Youtube without the ads because I don’t use it all that often. Recently I’ve been using Youtube to watch S. Korean dramas and the minor ad interruptions are not all that obtrusive.
I can’t find a way to pay google a little money to turn the app ad-free, so in this house-hold YouTube has been removed from the homescreen. So long Google.
Ugh, YouTube Ads. Yuck!! It’s like going to a website with ads from Ikea, AT&T, Humana, Aflac, VMWare and Amazon plastered all over the place, in between articles and hearing “…sponsored by” when listening to podcasts.
So annoying.
/s
Seems to go hand-in-hand with the fact that absolutely NO ad-blocking extension or plug-in will block video ads in Safari, although the same will block all ads in all other browsers.
Adblock allows you to choose which ads to block on any website using safari.
Have you ever blocked a video ad in Safari? With Ad-block or any other blocker?
I have. You right click on the video and choose “block ad”, then select the level of blocking using the slider and you’re done. What version are you using?
I have AdBlock 2.14 installed in Safari 7.0.3. Flash Player 16.0.0.235 is installed too. When I right-click a video I get Adobe Flash settings popup. Experiment with this page: http://g1.globo.com/index.html – yes it’s in portuguese but don’t worry about that, just click the video in the top right corner and you will get a 30 second “anuncio” before the desired content. Good luck!
I thought you were talking about non flash video embedded into web pages. To block flash video, use the clicktoplugin.
http://hoyois.github.io/safariextensions/clicktoplugin/
We don’t want to block flash video, we want to block ads in flash video.
Chrome works for that.
Yes, Opera too, but the focus is on Apple products here.
I knew this fateful day would come. Can’t stand non-relevant pre-roll ads. But so far I can skip them after 5 seconds (hit the Apple remote right arrow button) and they only come up on certain clips. The new interface is nice, and you can actually subscribe to channels now (never could believe it or not).
There are video alternatives coming in 2015 such as Yahoo and Vessel, so it might be time for YouTube to get disrupted.
Vimeo is hi quality video streaming done right!
ads really suck!
YouTube also added commercials to it’s mobile site! :(
Jaden E Michiko-Sewell1 second ago
No way to thumbs up a video on new youtube App For Apple TV 2014, any one knows how? this is a call out to the developer Team, or Apple experts; Exactly how do I watch a video, then give it a
It’s hard to find..but just pause a video while it’s playing..a “resume” window will pop up..scroll down to the bottom..hit like :)
At the top of every channel is a subscribe/unsubscribe button.
I’d like to know how to “add to favorites”..that feature is either very hard to find now or has been trimmed out in the the new version…