The new mobile feature allows users to swipe left or right to move through videos with ease.
The swipe-through feature, known internally as “swipey-watch” to YouTube product management and design teams, has been in development for two years.
Navigating through videos on the YouTube app was previously controlled through active tapping, a feature shared with YouTube’s desktop site. The new feature now lets users swipe freely to access content. A left swipe takes users back to previously played videos and a right swipe will play recommended videos that have been automatically queued.
Following the development of several prototypes, YouTube brought trial versions of the feature to content creators for testing and feedback. While a list of creators consulted on the project has not been released, Popular Science has reported that creators from “small-time cooking tutorials to content juggernauts like John and Hank Green” were likely to have been invited to trial the feature.
The introduction of the swipe-through feature follows a number of other updates to the YouTube app interface in recent years. An update released last year allowed aspect ratios within the video player to automatically adjust to provide a better viewing experience for users.
In 2017, the “double tap to seek” feature was also added to the app, enabling users to double tap the side of their screen to skip videos ahead by 10-second intervals.
You can now swipe left or right to navigate between @YouTube videos on mobile! The new feature is rolling out to iPhones this week and will be coming to Android devices later this year. Here's an inside look at the new way to watch: https://t.co/F5lPJsaVlF
— Susan Wojcicki (@SusanWojcicki) January 14, 2019
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