YouTube Buffs Out Mobile App With Offline Viewing Mode
YouTube announced that this November, it will launch an offline viewing option for mobile that will allow users to stash a video for later. Simply put, if you’re in the middle of watching a video on your mobile device and are going to lose your Internet (or just need to do something else for the moment and want to finish the video later), you can add the video to your device.
The video will be available on that device, whether or not it’s connected to the Internet, for up to 48 hours. After that it’s gone, but at any time during that window, you can pull it up on your device and watch away.
There’s no indication as to how much content a user will be able to park on a device--images of people cramming as much video as possible for a long car trip come to mind--although obviously, there will be some size limitations due to device storage constraints.
YouTube says that the new functionality is coming to its “YouTube app”, which we presume includes the Android, iOS, and Windows Phone (assuming Google unblocks it) YouTube apps, so if you see that your YouTube app has an update as early as 6 weeks from now, get excited and check it out.
The video will be available on that device, whether or not it’s connected to the Internet, for up to 48 hours. After that it’s gone, but at any time during that window, you can pull it up on your device and watch away.
There’s no indication as to how much content a user will be able to park on a device--images of people cramming as much video as possible for a long car trip come to mind--although obviously, there will be some size limitations due to device storage constraints.
YouTube says that the new functionality is coming to its “YouTube app”, which we presume includes the Android, iOS, and Windows Phone (assuming Google unblocks it) YouTube apps, so if you see that your YouTube app has an update as early as 6 weeks from now, get excited and check it out.
