YouTube users were so far able to skip 10 seconds of a movie by using the progress bar or swiping on the left or right half of the video player. But that is going to change for the better.
YouTube is apparently testing a new slide-to-seek feature on its Android and iOS apps to make forwarding and rewinding videos easier. Users will be able to skip to their favourite parts of a video by using a “drag-and-hold” gesture. It seems that the new feature is being tested and could be part of a server-wide update or reach users account by account.
The new motions are more natural and should make it much easier to manage video playback on YouTube.
A Reddit member discovered the new YouTube playback controls. According to the user (@u/FragmentedChicken), the slide-to-seek feature is accessible in the current YouTube beta v16.31.34 app for Android.
Some customers reported that the feature was visible on their iOS devices as well. It appears that the feature is reaching customers on an account-by-account basis.
According to the Reddit article, when performing the drag and hold gesture, users will see a ‘Slide left or right to seek’ banner at the top of the screen. This feature is accessed by touching and holding anywhere on the video screen and sliding left or right to rewind or skip.
Along with this, YouTube will provide a small thumbnail of the content being skipped, which should make it much easier to skip to the appropriate area of the content.
The standard way for rewinding or skipping sections of a YouTube video works slightly differently. To use the slide-to-seek feature, users must first bring up the progress bar by touching on the screen.
Once it is visible, users can drag the red dot to the appropriate location. Users of Google’s video streaming service can also skip content in 10-second increments by touching on the left or right half of the video player.
