A few days ago, Google partnered with Infinix to bring Android One to Africa. As this happened, most people focused on the first Android One device, the Infinix Hot 2, but forgot that Google also announced that it will be bringing YouTube Offline to a few African countries.
The first four countries that will be getting YouTube Offline are Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Egypt. YouTube said that the offline feature will be available in the four mentioned countries in the next few months. The company did not reveal the exact date of when it will be available. We also don’t know if the feature will be rolling out to all the countries at the same time or to each country at different times.
What is YouTube Offline?
YouTube offline was first rolled out last year and was officially rolled out in India as Google took Android One to that part of the world. YouTube offline, as the name suggests, lets uses watch YouTube videos even with no internet connection. This is quite nice given that most African countries still have unreliable internet connections.
How this works is pretty simple, through the official YouTube app. When you are on a video when you have an internet connection, you can choose to download videos to view them when offline. These videos are downloaded in the EXO file format. This is a file format used for system files and you cannot play the videos unless you use the YouTube App. This according to YouTube will prevent the distribution of copyrighted materials.
The downloaded videos can be viewed within 48 hours. YouTube also says that ads will be downloaded if you choose to save videos for offline viewing.
When available in this part of the world, this feature will roll out on the YouTube apps for iOS and Android.
We will update you more in this as we get more information.
