YouTube Getting New Look, Video Player Improvements and Pinch to Zoom on iOS

YouTube today announced a number of updates that are designed to improve the look and performance of the popular video player on desktop and on mobile devices.

General YouTube Feature 1
An "ambient mode" changes the background color of the app in a subtle way to match the video that is playing, an effect that YouTube says is meant to draw viewers into the content. Ambient mode will be available on the web and on mobile when the dark theme is enabled.

The dark theme has also been updated to be even darker than before, a change made due to user feedback.

As for the video player, YouTube links in video descriptions will turn into buttons, and actions like share and download have been updated to minimize distractions. The subscribe button has an updated shape and color, with YouTube doing away with the red shade.

On iOS and Android devices, a pinch to zoom feature that's been in testing is rolling out as of today. Users can zoom in and out of a video, and when the zoom in function is used, the rest of the video stays zoomed until the user zooms back out.

Precise seeking has also been implemented to make it easier to rewind to a specific spot in a video. Users can drag or swipe when looking through a video to see a row of thumbnails that will help them find the exact part of the video they're looking for.

YouTube says that all of these changes will begin rolling out gradually over the course of the next few weeks.

Tag: YouTube

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Top Rated Comments

ridgero Avatar
36 months ago
And hopefully the long-awaited M O R E - A D s feature
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ignatius345 Avatar
36 months ago
I started using Vinegar ('https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vinegar-tube-cleaner/id1591303229') a while ago and haven't looked back.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BWhaler Avatar
36 months ago
Youtube is a dumpster fire interface. Hope it really is fixed because the content is great.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mansplains Avatar
36 months ago
The design changes I'd be interested in would be:

* Adding dislike count back (pipedream and not super relevant here)
* Putting comment access before related videos, no extra tap (this is for the cOmMuNiTy after all)
* Less icons in the video player itself
* Removing redundancies, like in the cog icon in top right
* Removing things no one uses, like cardboard view
* Edit: adding a default playback speed setting
* Edit: adding audio-only playback to save data and skip loading. YT Music does similar with music videos.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheYayAreaLiving ?️ Avatar
36 months ago
Thank you YouTube for not charging us a fee for these amazing updates. ?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ignatius345 Avatar
36 months ago

After you buy it and install it, it says, “This extension will be able to read and alter webpages and see your browsing history on this website. This could include sensitive information, including passwords, phone numbers, and credit cards.

I don’t think I want some app developer having my google account information. Deleted
It's not taking your "google account information". It's reading which YouTube page you're looking at to (you know, in order to actually function). If you look carefully, it gets permission to work on YouTube only.



But anyway, suit yourself!

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Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)