YouTube Has a New Look on Mobile

Last week YouTube has started rolling out a new look both on the web and in various apps, promising a “more expressive and intuitive experience.” In fact, the reaction was mixed. For example, the TV app no ​​longer automatically rewinds or fast-forwards when you press the Back or Forward button, but instead switches between buttons including Like or Follow. More than once, while on TV, I've accidentally subscribed to a channel without meaning to, before realizing that I now have to press up first to get to the progress bar.

Now the changes have affected the YouTube mobile application, as I first noticed 9to5Google. While they are a little softer than you'll see on TV, there are still some changes that take some getting used to.

Larger and more massive icons

By far the most noticeable new change is a new set of YouTube icons that look like they've been hit with “Ctrl+B.” Compared to the old look, the play, fast forward, and other buttons are made larger and bolder to make them more visible.

Some buttons have also been merged. When viewing a video in landscape orientation, buttons that do not affect playback (like, dislike, comment, etc.) now appear together in the tablet in the lower left corner, rather than as separate elements.

New animations

New buttons aren't the only change YouTube has in store for you. Video search now has new animations, and some videos now have an extra personal touch to like.

Credit: Michelle Erhardt

The first is a fairly minor change. Now, when you double-tap the screen to go forward or backward by 10 seconds, the video will simply automatically jump to the new location and display a large “-10” or “+10” number, instead of showing a quick animation of three arrows fading into each other with a smaller “-10 seconds” or “+10 seconds” underneath them.

Credit: Michelle Erhardt

The second one is a little cuter. In some videos, clicking the “Like” button will now play a custom animation instead of just adding glitter around the thumbs up. For example, in a music video, you will now briefly see a musical note replace the thumbs up.

Pausing no longer darkens the background.

Previously, when you paused a video, the background would darken until you unpaused it, similar to dimming the stage lights. This is no longer the case. While you'll still see the light dim slightly while you have the controls open, the paused video will now appear as normal if you tap again to close the controls. This is a small tweak, but can be useful for taking screenshots. At the same time, I worry that if you're not paying attention, it's easy to think the video is frozen.

Finally, Google has removed several steps for saving and commenting on videos.

Tapping the bookmark icon to save a video to a playlist now requires fewer steps and no longer requires navigating through multiple pages. Instead, it will simply pause the video and open up your playlists list for you, where you can quickly tap on the playlist you want to save the video to.

Credit: Michelle Erhardt

Additionally, comments are now organized into threads, making it easy to show who is replying to which comment. This is a great way to follow the conversation, although each comment takes up a little extra space.

Can you get rid of YouTube's new UI?

Ultimately, I'm a little disappointed with the new YouTube app. Some of the new features like comment threads make sense to me. But the bulkier buttons seem to be a bit of a nuisance to me, and I can't help but think of Fisher-Price when I see them.

Unfortunately, there's not much you can do if you don't like YouTube's new mobile interface. It's still being rolled out, so you may not see all the changes yet. But since it's a server side, once you understand that, that's it. Even the web player receives these changes, so leaving the application is not practical.

However, if you are using a desktop computer, users on both Reddit And YouTube itself compiles lists of extensions that you can mix and match to customize your experience. Technically yes browsers for mobile devices it will also allow you to play around with them since Firefox is the most popular these days. However, I have found that most of the suggested extensions no longer work for me or are not available on mobile devices.

In that case, if you're tired of how YouTube looks now, you might want to consider an alternative player app instead. I like to play. It still uses embedded videos, so it won't spare you all the changes, but its overall minimalist style may be a welcome relief from YouTube's increasingly busy design language.