YouTube is renewed with a new dark theme, Ambient mode and other news. After several months of testing, YouTube listened to user feedback and officially announced, through a post on the official blog, several graphical updates to the platform that arrive on the client for Android, for iOS, for Smart TV and for web browsers.
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Among the innovations, designed to rejuvenate the platform that turned 17 at the beginning of this year, are the new dark theme with black as the master, the Ambient mode, other aesthetic innovations and other functional innovations.
YouTube is getting ready to receive a new look and feel
As anticipated at the beginning YouTube, the platform for sharing and viewing multimedia content on the network born in February 2005 and owned by Google since October 2006, has officially announced the release of some new features to graphically renew the platform, designed for respond to feedback from users all over the world, eager for a “cleaner and more lively” design.
All the news were illustrated in a long post on the platform’s official blog and are accompanied by a note from Neal Mohan, YouTube Chief Product Officer:
“When the first YouTube video was uploaded in 2005, YouTube had a search bar and a list of video tags on its home page. Since then, it can be said that we have undergone some changes. In this latest installment of our Innovation series, we share a design update that will make YouTube more modern and bring new features to power the YouTube you know and love. “
The new dark theme and Ambient mode land on YouTube
The YouTube team points out that color was a key theme during the development phase of the platform: the goal was to add liveliness to apps without upsetting the habits of viewers.
After having traveled various paths, the goal was achieved thanks to the new Ambient Mode, already extensively tested by a fair number of preview users: in essence, this mode uses dynamic color sampling to ensure that the background color of the app adapts to the video that is playing, replicating the effect of light that screens project in a dark room.
This feature will soon be available on the web client and on the YouTube app for Android and iOS devices, as long as the dark theme is enabled on the device.
In this regard, YouTube introduces a renewed dark theme that, finally, replaces gray with a deeper black, to give more prominence to the colors. The new dark theme will be distributed on the web client, on the app for Android and iOS devices and on the app for Smart TVs.
Other aesthetic changes for video playlists and buttons
YouTube also renews the graphic part relating to the video playlists: these, from now on, will adopt the same color treatment made possible by the Ambient mode, but also without the dark theme being active, within a renewed page that shows more details on the playlist itself, so viewers can have more information at a glance.
Another aesthetic novelty manifests itself in the video viewing page, made easier for the viewer’s eyes to read: the YouTube links in the video descriptions will turn into buttons and frequent actions such as “Like”, “Share” and “Download” have been formatted to minimize distractions: they are no longer single icons with counters underneath or an explanation of what the button does; as you can see from the following image, everything is now enclosed within pill-shaped buttons and the solution is really more discreet.
The “Subscribe” button is also about to be renewed: it will also be rendered as a pill-shaped button and will be in stark contrast to the rest of the interface, although it loses its iconic red color. In general, the row with the video creator channel and the button to subscribe to the channel has been moved above the quick action buttons, just below the video title.
Pinch-to-zoom and precise-seeking functionality arrive on YouTube
Announced at the beginning of the year, the pinch-to-zoom functionality is finally available: while playing a video, the user will be able to zoom the video with a simple pinch, similar to when you zoom in on a photo in the gallery.
It will not be necessary to keep your fingers in position to maintain the desired zoom: once zoomed, the video will remain on the detail until the user decides to go back.
The latest novelty available is the precise-seeking feature that allows a user to scroll through the video, to reach the precise part he is interested in, with the help of frame thumbnails.
The functionality is added to the already convenient functionality of subdividing video chapters and the possibility of holding down for a long time to scroll along in the video and to perform a double tap with two fingers to go to the next chapter; to take advantage of precise-seeking, simply drag or scroll up to open the row with the thumbnails; at this point, just scroll the progress bar which will be accompanied by thumbnails to catch the exact moment of the video.
The YouTube team closes the speech by underlining the commitment in wanting to continue improving the platform, starting with these innovations that will be gradually distributed to all users, whose feedback (both creators and viewers) continues to be fundamental for the growth of the platform itself.
To update the YouTube app for Android devices to the latest version available, so as not to risk missing out on the latest news, simply reach the app page on the Google Play Store through the badge below and then install it or, possibly, update it.
