YouTube has rolled out a new feature called “pinch to zoom” to premium users that allows you to zoom into a video on-screen, both for portrait and landscape viewing.
The announcement was made on YouTube’s experimental new features for paid users, which takes effect from the first of next month.
A report by 9to5Google, confirms the new feature is a little different than that which allows users to fill their screen in landscape mode. “Rather than filling your screen, pinch to zoom allows you to use two fingers to zoom into the video player. Once zoomed in, you can move around and look at parts of the video closer.”
If you use YouTube Premium, you can find the new feature in the mobile app on Android by following these steps;
- Tap your profile photo and then hit Your Premium benefits.
- From there, you can find the Try new features page and turn on YouTube’s pinch to zoom. It may take a while to kick in until you can give this new tool a shot.
A similar feature already exist on Android and iOS, that allow users to zoom in on YouTube content. It gets even better and simpler when you carry out this function on a desktop browser.
Pinch to zoom will only be available until September 1, giving YouTube Premium users enough time to try the new feature out and leave feedback.
YouTube Premium users have been getting a little extra features here and there like when the company introduced the background play tool and downloaded videos built into the app. With the ability to try different new experimental features, Premium users can discover new tools before anyone else.
Prior experimental features have since made their way into the full YouTube experience. Being able to voice search in a browser found its way to YouTube through the experiments page.
Another experiment brought to Premium users was easier playlist management, allowing users to easily drag and reorder upcoming videos around.
