When YouTube On The iPhone Was A Big Deal

    Apple confirms YouTube won't be a part of the forthcoming iOS 6 software for the iPhone. You probably won't even notice. But it made for a real nice iPhone ad, once upon a time.

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    A dog on a skateboard has never seemed quite as profound or dramatic as it did in these 30 seconds, one of a series of spots for the launch of the original iPhone. It was before apps, before the iPad, before Apple was the biggest tech company in the world. It was at a time when, yes, watching YouTube on a thing that fit in your pocket felt every bit as weighty as the music in the background implied. This was the future, and you could soon hold it in your hand.

    With the YouTube app's removal from iOS 6, Google's building its own version that people will be able to download from the App Store, like the Vevo music video app. More importantly though, most videos today play right in Safari on the iPhone and iPad, without needing to switch to the YouTube app. Watching YouTube on your phone is now so mundane that it doesn't need a whole app anymore. (Which has been kind of broken lately, anyway.)

    I'll tell you what I am missing in the early versions of iOS 6: Google Maps, which has been replaced by Apple's own app. I wish Apple (or Google) would confirm that Google's building its own version of that.