So Google refused to support H.264 and instead threw their weight behind VP8, a competing standard based on open source technologies which did not require paying royalties. This was anathema to Google's business model, which revolves around giving away products and services for 'free' while making money from harvesting and monetizing users' data. But Google didn't like it, because it was built around some patented technologies and required paying royalties. This finally made it feasible for consumers to store, stream, and download higher quality video content, including 720p and 1080P video. Apple, Sony, and many other leading companies in the entertainment industry embraced this codec. It made it possible to compress video files into much smaller sizes while maintaining very high quality. Years ago, H.264 emerged as a superior codec. This argument is all about competing video codecs-the algorithms used to compress video files into smaller sizes. You've got your technical details mixed up a bit. Anyway, since a developer speaks so strictly. OK but are both formats 4K? VP9 may be 4K but H.264 may be 1080p. The now defunct ProTube for iOS plays 4K YouTube. Google serves their 4K Videos in a second format, which the iOS/ tvOS plattform is capable of. I don’t know where this myth is coming from, that Apple needs the VP9 codec.

Cant watch 4k videos on youtube