Addressing an emerging need

Paying subscribers of YouTube’s premium service, YouTube Red, already enjoy the convenience of being able to save videos for offline viewing. YouTube Go is different. It aims to address a distinct—and very specific—emerging need.

Announced at a Google event in Dehli, YouTube Go aims to make the streaming video service more usable and accessible for people living in areas where data connectivity is scarce or limited.

The app builds on the Smart Offline feature previously available to Indian YouTube users, and has been developed specifically with their needs in mind.

It allows YouTube Go users to save videos while they have data access so that they can watch and share them later without a data connection.

It gives users clear options over file size and video quality, so they know how much data they will use to download it and how much space they need to store it.

It also lets users preview videos before watching or saving them, to make it even easier to manage data usage.

Sharing is caring

On top of saving videos for later, YouTube Go also lets users share their saved videos with their friends—without using any data.

According to the brief description on the official YouTube Go announcement page, it appears that this feature will use Bluetooth for the transfers, however this hasn’t been confirmed.

Who has access to YouTube Go?

At the moment, YouTube Go is only taking registrations from interested Indian users to test the app. The expectation is that it will be trialled and refined in India prior to a wider rollout.

However, there are currently no further details about where Google is planning to release the app next.