Last year, Google launched YouTube Go in India, a fork of the YouTube app that was focused on offline viewing and sharing it to your friends.
Well, today, Google has announced that the app is now being tested in several African countries, which includes Kenya.
“YouTube Go is now testing in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Ghana and Senegal. All your favourite videos ready to be enjoyed. Download for later, manage your data usage and share with friends nearby…” Google Africa said from the tweet.
Curious enough, I downloaded the app from Google Play and I was greeted with this interface.
It requests for your phone number after which you add your email and later on, it verifies your phone number. If the process is successful, it loads the actual user interface, which looks like a stripped down YouTube.
YouTube Go has two tabs, unlike 5 from the main app: Home and Downloads. Home is where you can see videos that you can download later for offline viewing, although you can still search for the specific videos that you want from the YouTube ecosystem.
When you find a video that you want to download for offline viewing, it shows the amount of space available in your phone and the various download options. When you download your video, it appears on the download tab.
However, the best thing about the app is that it allows you to share your downloaded videos with another user. All you have to do is tap on the share button at the top which is next to the search button and it loads options at the bottom for you either to send or receive.
The app sets up a bluetooth connection to pair with the other phone and later on sets up a Wi-Fi hotspot which transfers the downloaded video to the other phone.
This feature allows one to download the video once and share it to his/her friends without them needing to re-download or stream the same video. This is the entire basis of the app and it works very well although currently it is in beta.
So check out the app on the Play Store and see whether you might use it more than the standard YouTube app.
