Youtube has revealed a number of visual adjustments and user interface (UI) modifications to make the application feel “cleaner, more lively,” and simpler to use for multiple purposes. The most significant update is the pinch-to-zoom feature, which lets users enlarge the playing screen to focus on particular details or components.
Google is updating the YouTube app with a fresh appearance and a number of new features that will make watching videos more engaging and modern. Youtube announced in a recent blog post that, in light of YouTube’s recent 17th birthday, it was thinking about giving it a little makeover While YouTube has made a lot of improvements and changes, the “pinch to zoom” feature and “video navigation” are the most significant ones.
The pinch-to-zoom feature will let viewers zoom in and out of Youtube videos on both mobile and desktop devices. Earlier YouTube users had to keep their fingertips on the screen for the video to remain zoomed in. Users may now watch the rest of the Youtube video in greater detail since the video will remain zoomed in unless prompted.
Youtube noted in a blog post, “You may now simply zoom in and out of a movie on your iOS or Android phone using pinch to zoom. When you let go, the video remains zoomed in so you may see the rest of it in more detail. Allow your fingers to rest!”
The platform also made modifications to the way videos are navigated. The “precise seeking” function displays a row of thumbnails anytime you move to a specific point in the video. If you’re viewing a tutorial or a lecture and want to jump to a specific section of the video, this is quite helpful.
Youtube mentioned in the blog post, “Precise seeking builds on our recent improvements to video navigation that help you quickly find the parts you’re most interested in. We launched the ability to long press anywhere on the player to seek and double tap with two fingers to skip chapters. We also added a graph that shows frequently replayed moments in a video.”
Links to YouTube in video descriptions will now become buttons. In order to reduce distractions, actions like “like,” “share,” and “download” have also been moved to the lower side. The corporation has given the subscription button more weight by highlighting it more, which is good news for creators.
The subscription button is now visible to users in a white oval box right next to the creator’s name. The update also includes an ambient mode, which adds a soft effect just beneath a video. This feature will be available on both mobile and desktops in the dark theme.
To make the colors on the screen stand out more, Youtube has also updated and slightly darkened the dark theme. The color of hashtags on YouTube has also changed from blue to white, but their functionality and placement have not altered.
Although Pinch-to-Zoom in particular is a useful and major upgrade to the platform’s overall UI, all the other changes are relatively minor. It will be fascinating to observe how the other updates affect in-app engagement and clip finding actions even though they are expected to have less effect on the apps functionality.
Recently, YouTube debuted its brand-new “Unique Handles” feature, which gives users and creators a distinct handle ID that can be utilized to identify them.
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