Google has had interesting initiatives geared at making sure that users of its services in places where access to the internet is either very expensive or limited is easy. Some of those initiatives have included YouTube offline, its own effort to allow users in several countries to download their desired content off YouTube for viewing later on when they are off-grid.
That has so far worked well but not without its own challenges. Like the fact that users still have to access the standard YouTube app and skim through a lot of stuff before getting to what they want and saving it for later offline viewing. In-between opening the YouTube app and finding the content they need to save, some excess data is consumed, an outcome the user may not have either envisioned or wanted.
So now, what to do?
Enter YouTube Go, a new application that Google announced last year.
YouTube Go is a rethink of the standard YouTube app but one that is extremely conscious of the user’s data constraints. For instance, video previews load before downloading so that the user decides whether to download or watch a video. When one chooses the former, they also specify the size of the video.
According to Google, YouTube Go is “designed to be offline first and work even when there’s low or no connectivity.”
While the app was initially made available to select users in India, it seems that Google is currently rolling it out to more users. You can get it through the Play Store (where it is listed as unreleased) or APK Mirror.
Note that you will be required to provide your mobile phone number (which will then be verified) and link to your preferred Google account when signing in.
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