It has been two years since the “YouTube Creator” app was launched on Android. It was introduced as a competitor of CapCut and Inshot editor, but it is still far behind in this competition. At the time of its release, they discussed with 3,000 creators to ensure it met their needs.
Currently, there are 66 million and 21 million downloads of Capcut and Inshot on Android devices, respectively. Conversely, YouTube Creator downloads have surpassed 4 million since the platform’s launch. Although YouTube Creator is lagging in numbers but its overall percentage of active users increases up to 28% year-over-year. However, to boost its active users, Google decided to launch it on iOS. Recent studies indicate that Capcut and Instagram’s edit downloads were 28 million and 7 million, respectively, in the current quarter on iOS. It clearly shows the tough competition in the video editing space.
The truth here is that mostly creators already have their go-to tools, and they find it difficult to switch to another tool, especially when there’s no additional feature there. Therefore, in order to boom and compete with apps like Capcut and Inshot, it needs to offer something genuinely more innovative, something that forces creators to stop and pay attention. Google can focus on integrating it with AI-powered editing shortcuts or YouTube shorts for revolution. The iOS launch can bring new users, but it will still feel like a companion app, rather than the creator’s first choice. The goal to become a better one, especially in a space already packed with useful and well-loved tools is gonna take a lot more than your usual fanfare and routine PR push. This time, the old tricks won’t cut it, they’ll need to rewrite the script entirely if they want iOS users to care.
Google is preparing to bring YouTube Create to iOS devices nearly two years after the video editing app launched exclusively on Android. Job listings reviewed by TechCrunch reveal the company is actively hiring engineers in India for the iOS development project.