YouTube just had a huge makeover with a new design, new logo, and an updated app
We all know that YouTube has made a huge redesign of its website earlier this year, but everyone was not prepared for the big change. They just recently updated the app but most importantly, the logo.
As posted on their official blog, YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan explained what the team has been doing in the recent years revealing some new features to their mobile app, desktop design, and logo.
After its launch 12 years ago, this is the biggest logo transformation YouTube has ever had as earlier improvements were only minor tweaks. To make it even more exciting, they updated the mobile app which got a whole bunch of new features.
Here are the major updates:
- Clean new design: They made the header white to let content take the lead and moved the navigation tabs to the bottom of the app so they’re closer to the user’s thumbs. They also added new Library and Account tabs that give easy access to what the user is looking for.
- Videos that move with you: According to Mohan, one of the things they are working on is bringing gestures to YouTube. Earlier this year, they introduced a gesture that allows users to double tap on the left or right side of a video to fast forward or rewind 10 seconds. Other changes are expected to come in months as they experiment with a feature that lets viewers jump between videos with a simple swipe of the hand.
- Watch at your own pace: One key feature that users love is that they are able to speed up and slow down the playback of a video on desktop, and YouTube just added this to the mobile app yesterday!
- Adapt to any video, beautifully: Soon, the YouTube player will seamlessly change shape to match the video format you are watching. It will change into vertical, square or horizontal. This feature will change the shape in mobile viewing automatically including vertical videos with no black bars on the sides!
- Browse and discover while you watch: They also a feature that lets users view a row of suggested videos while watching in full screen. They are now working on transforming the area below the player so browsing videos will be made easier.
The desktop update includes a “dark mode” for nighttime viewing giving YouTube a more cinematic feel especially for those watching longer videos. Unfortunately, it is not yet available on the mobile app.
While these updates sound helpful to everyone, some think that the previous logo is better than the new one.
What do you think?
