The vast majority of Google’s iOS applications have not been updated since the beginning of December. By the end of last month, a trio of smaller Google apps had seen new versions, while YouTube for iPhone and iPad had just been updated tonight.
Following the latest YouTube release (15.49.4) on December 7, iPhone owners are watching version 15.49.6 tonight. The release date is officially February 13th, which is causing a very strange update of Google by Google. As usual, the YouTube team continued to use generic release notes:
Fixed bugs, improved performance, drank too much coffee
While it is normal for technology companies to interrupt work during the winter holidays, updates usually resume by mid-January. Some have speculated that the lack of releases was due to in-app nutrition labels, but YouTube filled in the app’s privacy section long before this update today.
In fact, the YouTube family (music, TV and studio), except for kids, was updated with the Apple requirement in early February. Google has publicly stated its commitment to add labels, and the current number is more than a dozen applications:
As Google’s iOS apps are updated with new features or to fix bugs, you’ll see updates to the list of app pages that contain the new app’s privacy information. These labels represent the maximum categories of data that can be collected – that is, if you use every available feature and service in the app.
The YouTube update comes when iPhone owners encountered a message “This app is out of date” earlier this week when they tried to sign in with a Google Account. There was no real security issue, and the alert was quickly removed.
Hopefully other Google app updates will follow soon. The latest Chrome for iOS is especially 24 days late, although feature parity has not been lost as most Google services were on the server update. For example, the Google app has undergone a major redesign over the past month of how search results are displayed.
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