YouTube Just Made It Easier For Mobile Users To Control Videos

YouTube has introduced a new update for its mobile apps, adding refinements to the mobile platform's interface that make things easier for users. Though the UI largely looks the same, frequent mobile users will note some small but convenient changes, including the ability to enter full-screen mode using a simple swipe and some new buttons.

The new video chapters feature that YouTube first started rolling out to some users earlier this year has expanded in this update on mobile. With this feature, users see small bars inserted on the red playback progress bar when streaming a video. Each break marks the start of a new chapter in the video, including a preview with the title for that chapter.

Quite obviously, users can use these indicators to easily find the parts of videos they're most interested in using a simple scrubbing gesture. This latest update to the feature makes things even easier by adding expanding the tool to include a chapter list view.

Beyond this, users will now find YouTube's autoplay and closed captions toggles directly on the video player for faster access, plus YouTube has introduced suggested actions. As the term indicates, suggested actions are prompts that encourage the user to consider performing some action based on what YouTube thinks is best, such as putting on a VR headset to experience a 360-degree video.

These changes join a number of other tweaks and small updates YouTube has introduced this year, ones designed to make the viewing experience easier, help users find the content they'd likely be interested in watching, and even helping them manage their binge-watching sessions to make sure they get to bed on time.