Google today unveiled a new version of YouTube for both mobile devices and the desktop.
To start, the mobile app has a new, clean design. Google changed the header from red to white, moved the navigation tabs to the bottom of the app, and added new library and account tabs to ease content discovery. The app gains new gestures, such as a feature that lets users jump forward and backward between videos with a swipe of their hand.
YouTube for mobile adds the ability to tweak playback speeds, so people can speed up or slow down videos to suit their preferences. Moreover, Google is experimenting with new ways to display videos. People will begin to see the YouTube player change shape to match the video format being viewed, such as square, vertical, or horizontal, as well see a row of suggested videos when watching in full screen.
Google says it is playing with new ways to browse for videos in the space below the video player, though these features aren’t yet available. Google updated the YouTube logo for the first time since it bought the property back in 2006. Google believes the changed icon will work better across various screen types and sizes.
Many of these changes are reaching the desktop version of YouTube, which gains Google’s Material Design and a dark theme for more cinematic viewing.
