YouTube Safari plugin (Flash?) for iPhone firmware 2.0?

A popular tech site discovered the iPhone 2.0 firmware recently seeded to developers includes a YouTube plugin for MobileSafari.app, but this plugin may not give us the in-browser YouTube support many have been waiting for.

In an ideal world, surfing YouTube on a mobile device like the iPhone wouldn’t involve anything except the phone’s browser, but this isn’t an ideal world. Mobile devices tend to lack the Flash support necessary to play the videos on many sites, so workarounds are developed such as the iPhone’s YouTube.app, which uses a separate video library in a mobile format.

The iPhone 2.0 firmware recently seeded to developers includes a YouTube plugin, according to the BGR. This plugin may be the holy grail of in-browser YouTube support many iPhone fans have been waiting for, or it could just be a plugin to redirect clicks on YouTube videos in Safari to the YouTube.app program (only if the video is also in the mobile library).

If this turns out to be that special Safari plugin, it may include in-browser Flash support for other sites, truly making Safari on the iPhone the uquestionable champion of mobile broswers. Since this affects Mobile Safari, the new functionality should hit the iPod Touch as well.

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