Apple has finally revealed the mysterious 12th application on its Apple iPhone - and it's a video player for Google 's YouTube video sharing service.
The '12th app' mystery has been tantalising iPhone watchers every since an eagle-eyed viewer spotted a icon consistency glitch in Apple US TV ads. The giveaway was the fact that the Clock icon on one iPhone screen appeared to have dropped down in another, suggesting that an unseen application had made the Clock icon shift position.
To make the iPhone and YouTube work together, YouTube has adopted the H.264 codec used by Apple and many other internet and broadcast video providers. H.264 delivers much better picture and sound quality than what YouTube uses now. The iPhone, the iPod and the Apple TV all use H.264 by default.
Apple says 10,000 H.264 encoded YouTube videos will be available at the iPhone launch on Friday 29 June, with more added weekly thereafter.
Google and Apple sitting in a tree, uh-oh security?
YouTube integration into the iPhone isn't that much of a surprise. We all know it can play video, and Apple announced a few weeks ago that it was bringing YouTube content to its Apple TV media streamer. Google CEO Eric Schmidt sits on Apple's board and the two companies have said that they're going to work closely together.
What could be an unpleasant surprise for every Apple TV and iPhone owner is the news this morning that YouTube is a malware writer's wet dream . Let's hope Apple and Google address that particular hiccup pretty quickly.
