• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, August 7, 2012

Muddying YouTube’s mobile strategy, Apple has let its license to carry the video-sharing platform’s app in iOS expire. “iOS 6 beta 4 has removed the YouTube application that existed on iOS since the first version in 2007,” 9to5Mac reports.

Some Web Watchers took the development personally. "Apple killing YouTube on iPhone just happens to be the last straw," Jeff Jarvis tweeted Monday after learning that new iPhones would be ditching YouTube. "Went into the AT&T store today to begin switch to my Android phone."

“The rift between Apple and Google just got a little wider,” according to The New York Times’ Bits blog.

“The Apple decision to dump native YouTube support from iOS 6 is utterly inevitable as the company continues to punish Google for what Cupertino’s executives see as that firm’s duplicity regarding Android and the iPhone,” insists Computerworld’s Jonny Evans.

“It's not clear yet what caused this change -- Apple may have grown tired of paying the Google license, or it may have simply wanted the iOS experience to be free of Google's apps out of the box,” writes The Verge.

What’s more, Apple isn’t completely cutting off Google’s prized video property. “Apple also confirmed that YouTube will work in Safari and also noted that Google is making a new YouTube app that will be available in the App Store,” The Verge adds.

“It's true that between Google Maps and Google's YouTube, Apple seems to be cutting the ties with the firm,” writes Fortune -- adding that it also agrees with TheNextWeb’s Matthew Panzarino, and his contention that, that from Apple's point of view, the YouTube app had served its purpose.

Writes Panzarino: “The native YouTube app was an effort to legitimize HTML5-compatible video. Apple used it as leverage, got the entire YouTube catalog converted over to iPhone-friendly video and everyone else followed suit.”