i like ios 7-9's design style more than ios 1-6's. not talking about the os itself i still think 6 looked cooler in that regard, but. the 2014 style of app design is way better than the 2012, in my opinion. let's look at youtube, i guess. i have youtube version 10.11.bunchofnumbers i forgot what the numbers actually are. it came out in 2014 and looks freaking great. the main page is kinda similar to what we have now, but it's more stylized with shadows and grays so it isn't just completely flat like nowadays. the menu is better than any other theme the youtube app has ever had. the cool gray frosted-glass effect that's a trademark of ios 7-9 design, the great interface and organization, the old font that just looks cooler, I SOUND ACTUALLY INSANE RIGHT NOW WOWOWOWOWOWOW. yeah gonna stop there. just look up a picture if you want to, i found an engadget post with a good picture of it.
unfortunately, even with tweaks, this version of youtube is essentially pointless to use. there's a really cool project called verduraios that restores some functionality to it, but that functionality is onlu watching videos and recommendations. you can't comment, you can't search, you can't view channel pages or even the description because the only feature that still exists aside from watching videos is recommendations. and also like, half-logging in. you can't log in to any google apps on any ios version below i think 11. however, if you create a new google account through one of these apps, it'll still let you sign in and keep you signed in across all of them. of course, it's a brand-new account, so it's not really that useful unless you're willing to start over with all your stuff, but all the apps will work perfectly if you do. that does bring me to the most disappointing fact about the can-you-even-call-it-a restoration of the coolest looking version of youtube: there's no menu. at all. it's just your account at the top, a settings button, and nothing. this is because the menu was loaded server-side, since it had all your playlists and subscriptions and stuff. the menu isn't loaded the same way in modern versions of the app, so it's just. completely gone. there's not even a way out of settings, since you would do that by clicking on something in the menu.
genuinely i am so disappointed by this you have no idea. it would be so so so so so cool if it worked better, but it doesn't and i'm sad. maybe i'll develop my own tweak for it someday, but also i have no idea where i would even start. there aren't any archives of the menu since it was buried somewhere in google's servers, not a website you could visit. for now, you use the youtube website, not the app. but that's Lame and I Don't Like It. exasperated sigh.