YouTube rolls out new playback speed slider on Android & iOS

YouTube has been rolling out dozens of features lately based on user feedback. Last month, the video streaming platform rolled out support for creating custom thumbnails for video playlists. Now, YouTube is rolling out a redesigned playback speed interface on Android and iOS.

YouTube app gets a redesigned playback speed control interface on Android and iOS

The first time Google updated YouTube with playback speed, it was available on desktop. However, the latest update is coming first to the app. Late last month, some reports hinted that YouTube could scrap the current playback speed interface with a new one.

Fast forward to today, YouTube has started rolling out the updated interface for playback speed control to the masses with app’s versions 19.43 and 19.44 on Android and iOS, respectively. We can already see the redesigned playback speed slider in the YouTube app on one of our Android phones. You can check out the screenshot at the end of this article.

Previously, the YouTube app used to open a tall list with five different playback speed options – 0.25x, 1.0x, 1.25x, 1.5x, and 2.0x. Although it was easy to pick the desired playback speed, the list used to take up almost half of the screen. Now, that problem is solved.

Users can now use a slider to pick the desired playback speed

The updated playback speed control is much shorter and comes with a slider. It is now placed at the bottom of the screen and has the same playback speed presets. While you could previously choose the playback speed from the list, there’s a new slider interface for the same purpose.

All you have to do is slide through the playback speed and release it once it reaches the speed of your choice. Alternatively, you can use the plus “+” and minus “-” buttons sitting at each end of the slider to pick playback speed. Moreover, if you aren’t seeing the updated playback speed interface yet, make sure to update the YouTube app from the Google Play Store or App Store.