announced on MondayThe new, darker YouTube design is being actively rolled out. The way YouTube is designed doesn’t change drastically, but taken together, these tweaks offer a more drastic upgrade than what was telegraphed earlier in the week.
On Android and iOS, you will be greeted with a “New look, still YouTube” prompt after getting the server-side update. Make sure to download the latest version of cell phone apps. “Pinch to zoom in full screen” is prominently featured on the next page, and you can zoom in up to 8x.
If the dark theme is enabled in YouTube, the first change you’ll notice is how the background is darker (#0F0F0F), even though it’s not completely black. This matches YouTube Music and is something people have always wanted in mobile apps.
On the Library tab, you’ll notice that the video thumbnails now feature rounded corners, and this change is also applied to the web redesign. For uploading playlists, YouTube now shows a cover thumbnail at the top, although you see fewer videos right away. The pill-shaped buttons are enhanced with more importance for editing and downloading, which are now placed in circles.
L: Old | R: new
The next set of changes is on the video page. By default, Ambient Mode is enabled so that the top and bottom of what you see in the status bar and video description below flow, respectively. It will take some time to get used to the vibrant versus the dull colors and it works better. Fortunately, you can disable it by clicking on the settings gear in the upper-right corner and clicking on the fourth item in the list.
We took inspiration from the light that screens cast in a dark room and wanted to recreate the effect so that viewers are drawn directly into the content and the video takes more focus on our watch page.
L: Old | R: new
Below the video, clicking anywhere opens Descriptions, but YouTube now uses “…more” instead of the chevron. Additionally, the links have been replaced with discs that include the video title for a rather nice preview. The channel name appears next, while Google has updated the subscribe button so that it is no longer red. (Channel pages tweaked slightly to be somewhat cleaner).
Next is a set of key actions like thumb up/down, share, create, download, thank, cut and save. All of these buttons are placed in pills. The top comment is now prominently featured on the card.
on the desktop, YouTube.com get kit disc theme material Not found on mobile. For example, the circle of images just below the search bar now uses rectangles with rounded corners instead of discs while video thumbnails with equal zoom are more visible here.
Away from the darker look, the video page gets similar tweaks to the layout below the video while the surrounding mode is a bit nicer here. This bleed extends to the side feed of videos and looks rather neat on a big screen.
This new YouTube is still available and not widely available yet.
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