YouTube Brings Screen Lock And 8 Exciting New Features

Date: October 18, 2023

YouTube has led the online streaming industry with 2.7 billion monthly users. It is launching multiple new features that enhance user experience to keep its leadership stance.

YouTube just received a refreshed look on both mobile and desktop interfaces. While the world is getting used to these new placements of buttons and navigation, the platform has launched many exciting features to improve user experience. Let’s quickly dive deeper into knowing what they are.

New Audio Controls

YouTube is rolling out the ‘stable volume’ feature to provide better audio control for mobile devices. This will reduce the jarring difference in how the volume increases or decreases on various devices and stabilize the overall audio quality.

Easier Fast-Forwarding

Till now, users could only fast-forward the video to 10 seconds with a tap. Apart from this, the only way to go further was to increase the speed of the video. Now, the platform will allow you to fast-forward playback video up to 20 seconds. The functionality will be similar to the multiple-tap feature it had earlier. But now, holding the screen in portrait or landscape mode for a few seconds will increase the video playback speed by 2X. The playback speed will return to its default setting when you remove the finger.

Better Seeking

While users hovered over the playback line to see a preview of the scene of interest, the thumbnails were quite small. YouTube has now increased the size of the thumbnails to make it easier to seek the scene previews. 

Users can also cancel the seeking and return to their last scene easily. All they need to do is to hover back to the scene they were watching till they hear a vibration. Then, removing the finger will resume the last played video timestamp.

Screen Lock

Millions of users have been victims of accidental screen touch while immersed in an exciting video. To prevent this, YouTube is introducing an age-old feature of screen lock. Simply tacking the lock icon will freeze the functions, apart from emergency calls.

You Tab

The platform has merged a few separate sections under one umbrella section called ‘You Tab’. By opening this tab, users can find previously watched videos, playlists, downloads, purchases, account-related settings, and channel information. The feature has already been rolled out on phones, tablets, and web-based platforms.

Search By Voice

Like Google’s flagship Search By Image feature, YouTube will now allow users to conduct AI-powered searches for content using audio or songs. This feature will roll out in the coming weeks, but only for Android devices.

Button Animations

This feature is a boon for content creators. When creators ask for likes or subscriptions, the app will highlight their respective buttons to create user cues. YouTube said, “And once fans smash that button, a subtle explosion of playful sparkles will reward them. Top comments automatically rotate so you can scan the best commentary from the community,”.

Vertical Menu For TVs

The user count of Smart TVs is growing rapidly on YouTube. To improve their user experience, YouTube has introduced a new vertical menu that will show the details of a video in a much cleaner look.

YouTube is rolling out features faster than any other video streaming service provider. It is also working on AI to make the user experience smarter and features sharper. This definitely makes YouTube the leader of all OTT platforms with none replacing it anytime soon.