There is a new user interface test that’s been going on for YouTube on mobile, which is introducing some new tweaks to the “Playback in feed” feature in order to make it more immersive, reports 9to5Google.
YouTube testing new changes to the Playback in feed feature
The tweaks were first spotted by Android Police, and they were discovered in a beta version of the app. The change to the user interface will have new in-feed controls for the volume of the video that has played automatically, as well as closed captions, alongside the ability to save it to “Watch later” or skip it. At the same time, the rest of the YouTube home feed will be dimmed shortly after a video starts to autoplay.
If you want to access the controls, you need to tap on the three-dot expanded menu option that will be alongside the video title, channel icon, and the count of views. Pretty much, to some, this change might appear a bit intrusive.
Everything in the background is dimmed for the video that’s auto-playing
However, it is most probably in testing so that the YouTube auto-playing feature gets more immersive. Basically, the feature is reminiscent of the Turn Off the Lights extension for Chrome, which goes and dims all other elements of the UI except for the video player. For people who want to focus on the content in the video, this feature will prove to be quite useful.
Here are the options you would get for the video
This change has been noticed in YouTube beta v17.10.35, but it is not widely available yet, probably more like a part of an A/B test. At the moment, it seems there isn’t a way to adjust this feature or disable it.
We can’t help but think of TikTok for this one, as its purpose is viewing videos in-feed instead of on dedicated channels. Probably, YouTube is planning that in order to better rival TikTok’s growing popularity. We also have YouTube Shorts that’s another way the company is looking to better match what users like and how users prefer to consume content online.
