Google Does Love Windows Phone, When It Comes To Search — Angering YouTube Users

Google doesn’t care about Windows Phone, given the latest spat over its YouTube app? Think again. Google cares very much, at least when it comes to search. That apparent double-standards is something users of its Windows Phone search app have taken to its review page to express upset over.

Windows Phone Doesn’t Matter To Google?

I’ve read a couple of news reports now where the whole dispute between Google and Microsoft over its YouTube app is taken as proof that Windows Phone just doesn’t have enough market share for Google to care about.

In contrast, Google makes a wide-range of apps for iOS, because iOS has a large audience that it clearly wants. But Windows Phone? Apparently, it’s too small to matter.

It Matters Enough For A Search App

But that’s not true. It’s not too small to matter when it comes to search, where Google has long built its own Google Search app for Windows Phone. In fact, to my knowledge, it remains the only app that Google itself has created and published for Windows Phone:

Google is not the default search on Windows Phone, and clearly it has decided that this matters enough to make its own app. It even proudly announced the news of its redesigned Windows Phone search app on its blog last year.

That leads to YouTube, where because Google itself hasn’t decided to publish an app, Microsoft has had to do it — and twice now in three months, Google has had concerns about that app enough to demand it be withdrawn.

That leads to the obvious question. Why doesn’t Google just build a YouTube app itself? Windows Phone obviously does matter to it, given the Google Search app. So why leave YouTube users hanging? And it’s YouTube users themselves who are asking.

Upset From Google Search Users

Well, not asking so much as cursing, yelling and expressing upset over the disparity on the Google Search App page for Windows Phone via reviews for the app:

I blocked out some of the worse profanity. A sampling of the reviews:

• Wow blocking YouTube again time to trade my note 8.0 for a surface pro or iPad. I lost all respect. For google Lumia 1020 ftw
• Installed this app just to cuss you out…. I hope scroogle rots inside out.
• Damn you for blocking YouTube
• Google you’re garbage, we just need YouTube, we can use Bing for search.

To be fair, it’s not hundreds of negative reviews. It’s 10, all since YouTube was withdrawn yesterday. But it does show that some ordinary users are aware that Windows Phone does matter to Google, and that they want it to matter more.

There are also many, many other negative reviews where people express upset with Google on the page for the YouTube app, which remains up.

Related Articles

• Sorry, Microsoft Surface Users: No Google Search App For You
• The Strange Explanation Of Why Windows Phone Users Lost Access To Google Maps
• The Google vs. Microsoft YouTube App Spat Has Officially Erupted