I'm not sure if it's Ars' commentary, or just the commenters, but it seems entirely sided towards Microsoft. Ars didn't mention that Microsoft didn't want to play by the rather simple rules of "put the video in a web frame", and that Microsoft admits to re-releasing the application they previously pulled because it didn't follow the rules.<p>Plus, it seems like the author of the post fails to understand what Google wanted, and that Microsoft was being totally passive-aggressive in their blog post.
This whole thing is a giant nothingburger. There are plenty of Youtube apps for WP. The official one on iOS that got so much hype on release (and talk now regarding the lack of a WP version) is frankly awful compared to many of the alternatives and currently sits at 2 stars on the iOS store.<p>WP users be thankful you don't have either the MS port or an official Google one. From what I gather even if you had both, you'd still want to download Metrotube.
Besides that this was heavily commented a few hours earlier in another thread, everyone can play YouTube videos without ads via VLC.<p>Is VLC a YouTube application or not? Because it doesn't use HTML[5].
I agree with this comment on the Ars thread[1]. I know this was discussed extensively here[2]. But, the comments on the thread seemed a bit biased towards one side.<p>[1] - <a href="http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/google-blocks-windows-phone-youtube-app-again-for-manufactured-reasons/?comments=1&post=25106575#comment-25106575" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/google-blocks-windows...</a>
[2] - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6220233" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6220233</a>