Why the iPhone is changing mobile video

I’ve always been a fan of online videos. A healthy diet of fun, informational and business videos is an essential part of the modern web warrior. The only shortcoming of web videos over the past few years is that they didn’t translate well on mobile devices. Watching a video on a blackberry or other device with an Internet connection and a decent size display was usually nowhere near as effective as watching one online. Video load times were slow, buffering was choppy and the devices either required plugins or just wouldn’t display the videos correctly in the first place. And then came the iPhone…

Now I have to admit that I’m working off an iPhone 3GS these days which is faster and better than ever so I can’t speak for the older generations of iPhones. The 3GS displays videos so seamlessly and effectively that it’s just as much fun if not more so than watching it on a computer. YouTube is integrated perfectly into the device and a search renders results in no time that can be clicked on and played beautifully in landscape mode with no buffering issues at all. It’s an unbelievable experience.

To top it off, many of the great apps on the iPhone (my favorite being Shazam link to YouTube and let you view contextually relevant videos in a matter of seconds.

What used to be a painful chore is now a thing of beauty thanks to the iPhone. Congrats to Apple on producing the most impressive tool/gadget I’ve encountered in a long time.