Google is the reason why YouTube isn't a default app on the iPhone anymore

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larry page and tim cook

AP / Getty Images / Justin Sullivan

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google cofounder Larry Page.

In 2012, Apple and Google were going through a breakup of sorts.

Apple released a new version of iOS without the Google Maps or YouTube apps, which had previously been included on the iPhone as default apps since the first iPhone.

Now, we know why YouTube was pulled as a default app: Because Google requested it. And, it had nothing to do with Apple's famous decision to make its own mapping software. 

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Apple wanted to include YouTube on the first iPhone, so it asked Google for special privileged access to the video platform, although it built the YouTube app itself.

Then five years later, Google decided to "take back control of our app," according to Hunter Walk, a venture capitalist at Homebrew who worked at YouTube for years.

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At the time, many thought it was Apple that kicked Google's YouTube out of its default apps. Now, YouTube needs to be separately downloaded, and lots of people do it - it's currently the fourth most downloaded free app on the App Store.

Walk published his recollections as a tweetstorm on Thursday, and joked that the "statue of limitations on any nondisclosures" from his time at YouTube had expired.

Here's his story: 

 

 

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