Over the next several years, it is predicted that more people will access the web on mobile devices like smartphones than will access the web via a computer.

YouTube is the top video destination on the internet and as such, it serves a huge number of videos each day to users all around the world. Some of those users watch the videos via native applications for specific devices such as the iPhone. The downside to accessing YouTube from these native apps is that the apps often aren’t updated as fast as the actual YouTube website.

To resolve this issue, YouTube has announced that it has updated its mobile website with new features. The biggest news is significant speed boost; YouTube claims the new mobile site is much faster. The updated mobile site is also optimized for touchscreen devices with larger elements that are more touch friendly. The mobile site also includes features from the main site including the ability to favorite, like, and unlike videos directly from the mobile device. 

The newly updated mobile site is only launching in English right now, but YouTube reports it will be launching the new site in more languages in the coming months. The new site can be accessed by all manner of mobile smartphones and devices including the iPhone and Android handsets. Specific support for the iPhone would mean no Flash and the use of HTML5.

YouTube claims that its mobile site usage is growing exponentially. The video site claims that playback using the mobile site was up 160% in 2009 compared to 2008. YouTube now also streams about 100 million videos each day from its mobile site, which is about the number of videos streamed from its main site when Google purchased YouTube in 2006.