The free version of YouTube works perfectly well (despite the current ad blocker debacle), but if you use it a lot, a Premium subscription is actually a pretty good deal. Not only can you skip most ads, download videos for offline playback, and access YouTube Music Premium, but you also get the chance to try out new features before other YouTube users.
Today, YouTube added five new features for YouTube Premium subscribers: two are now rolling out broadly, and three more are experimental features that you can enable if you want. Here’s what’s new.
Jump forward
After a series of tests, YouTube launches Jump Ahead. The new feature uses AI to analyze the “best” parts of a video, based on where most users are moving while watching. When you double-tap the player window to skip forward 10 seconds, you will now have the option to “Jump Ahead” to that “better” location.
YouTube says this feature is rolling out to YouTube for Android first, but it will soon be available on the iOS app for Premium subscribers.
Picture in Picture for YouTube Shorts
Picture-in-picture is a convenient way to watch videos on platforms like YouTube while switching to other apps. Now, Premium subscribers on Android will also be able to use PIP for TikTok-like YouTube Shorts. I suspect this feature will be useful for Shorts that aren’t. Also short, but I don’t really see a good use case for keeping 15-30 second videos in PIP while doing things in other apps.
Smart Downloads for Shorts (Experimental)
If you enable this experimental feature, YouTube will automatically download new Shorts to your smartphone so you can watch them with or without a connection. The company didn’t specify, but I’m guessing these Shorts would also work in PIP mode.
Conversational AI (experimental)
YouTube also announced the return of its conversational AI to Android devices. When available, YouTube’s AI will appear below videos via an “Ask” button. You can ask the bot questions and request similar content to the videos you’re watching, even while a video is playing. I doubt this will be a game changer, but it’s an interesting experiment nonetheless.
New Reading Page UI (Experimental)
The only change to the YouTube web app for Premium subscribers is a new experimental viewing page. YouTube hasn’t given much information on this, but has said that the new viewing page will make it easier to find new videos and interact with comments.
How to enable YouTube experimental features
If you’d like to try these three new experimental features, as well as any other experimental features YouTube is currently testing, go to YouTube’s New webpage and sign up.
News Source : lifehacker.com
Gn tech
