YouTubescreenThinking of kicking back and watching the latest movie trailers or cat videos from YouTube on your streaming media device or smart TV?

Better make sure it’s a newer model. Google is following through on its promise to pull the plug on device YouTube apps that don’t support the latest version of its data API and the new features it contains.

Starting this week, YouTube is giving the bad news to users of now-unsupported devices — from second-generation Apple TVs or older, to any iOS6 or earlier device, to Google TVs version 2 and older, to a number of pre-2013 smart TVs, Blu-ray players and game consoles  — through a video that will appear when they launch their current YouTube app. It reads, in white text on a somber gray background, “YouTube is upgrading to a newer version, which is not supported by this device or app. To learn more and see where you can watch YouTube, visit www.youtube.com/devicesupport.”

One workaround YouTube’s site suggests is avoiding the app and instead using a web browser on the device “that supports flash and/or HTML5.”

Aside from the video notice, the YouTube app will still work on older devices — that is, through early May, when the video notice will be the only thing users will be be able to view. Until the app stops working entirely later that month.

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