YouTube gets a new logo, Material Design, and new features for desktop and mobile apps

YouTube is likely the Google product with the most frequent set of changes. Over the past several months, the company has been testing a series of new features for its mobile and desktop experiences, and today they are all launching alongside a refreshed logo.

YouTube’s logo is pretty iconic, so any change to it is a big deal. Today’s refresh is still just as recognizable, but with a more minimal take on the design. The “play button” separates from the text, leaving YouTube’s name off to the side. The red color has also been brightened a bit. There’s nothing super eye-catching with this new logo, but it looks pretty good if you ask me.

Furthermore, YouTube has refreshed both its desktop and mobile experiences with a new look and new features too. On the desktop, there’s a clear Material Design for the entire site, with long-awaited features like a dark mode. If that sounds familiar, it should be considering that YouTube originally introduced it a couple of months ago in testing. From what we can tell, nothing has changed since that introduction aside from the new logo up top.

Finally, there are YouTube’s mobile apps. We constantly see changes in testing on YouTube’s Android app over at 9to5Google, and today a lot of the features that have quietly been making their debut are finally “official.” That includes features like tap to skip, speed controls, and the app’s new ability to shape the video player to fit the content on the screen.

If you come across a video shot in vertical orientation, YouTube will now shape the player so that video takes up more of your phone’s screen rather than placing black bars around the video (no one should take this as a reason to shoot vertical videos though).

The YouTube app will also be updated to remove the red accents in exchange for white, something we, again, saw in testing a while back, at least on Android. The new YouTube logo will also be added to the app. These will both likely be server-side updates, but YouTube says they will begin rolling out today. It’s unclear when iOS will see these changes debut.