Apple to Dump YouTube ... for Now

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- In the smartphone wars, he who has all the revenue calls the shots, at least for now.

According to tech-focused news site The Verge, Apple is reportedly dropping Google's YouTube from its next mobile operating system, iOS 6, as the license deal between the two companies has expired.

But fear not YouTube fans, Google is reportedly working to make a new YouTube app that will be available in the App Store.

YouTube has been a featured app on the iPhone since its launch in 2007.

This isn't the first time Apple has fired a shot at Google. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company announced in June that it would be replacing Google Maps as part of iOS 6 with its own proprietary mapping system, Apple Maps.

Prior to his death, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs vowed to show Google's Android operating system as a copycat of iOS and use all of the company's cash to defeat it. "I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this," Jobs told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, prior to his death.

There was a mixed reaction on social media to the announcement. One Twitter user thought it might be spite, considering Apple's past with Google. "Why would $AAPL kick YouTube off of iOS, is it just pure spite or are they gonna make a play on video? seems like spite," the user tweeted. Business Insider's Henry Blodget called it "annoying." Others were more pro-Apple in their approach and sentiment.

An Apple spokesman couldn't be reached for immediate comment on the report.

Shares of Apple closed higher Monday, up 1.11% to finish at $622.55, while Google gained 0.23% to wind up at $642.82.

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--Written by Chris Ciaccia in New York

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