In the next few weeks, YouTube users in India will be able to save videos offline and watch them anywhere, any time, without a data connection.
The announcement was made at an event in Gurgaon, India, immediately after Google launched its low-cost Android One initiative in the country.
"YouTube is popular here. You watch some videos again and again. How awesome would it be if you could keep watching them again and again without having to pay for data, and take the videos with you wherever you go?" said YouTube executive Ceasar Sengupta at the event. "Within the coming few weeks, much of YouTube will be available offline in India. This is huge, and our users will really, really like this. You can download a video once, save it to your phone, and watch it again and again."
Medianama reports that the offline availability will not just be restricted to music videos, unlike YouTube's subscription-based YouTube Music Key. Users will be able to save almost any video on the streaming service to their Android phones, tablets or computers.
There is no word on how advertising will work offline, but Medianama speculates that ads could be synced offline when the device is connected to the internet and played back when users play downloaded videos.
There is no word on whether this is coming to other countries, if at all, but as someone who lives in India, I have to say it's nice to get a feature before the U.S. gets it for a change. [Medianama]