YouTube for iOS Gets a Dynamic Player, Adapts to Vertical and Square Videos

Google-owned video sharing platform YouTube announced the rollout of its new dynamic player on iOS devices. The official YouTube app will be updated to support formats other than horizontal video viewing. These include videos that are square-shaped and in other aspect ratios like 16:9 and 4:9.

Back in June, YouTube had announced that the new dynamic player will be rolling out to both Android and iOS in the "coming weeks". The official YouTube Twitter handle tweeted, on Tuesday, that the feature has started rolling out for iOS. There is currently no update on when Android will get the new dynamic player.

The YouTube app on iOS has till now been compatible with horizontally shot videos; vertical and square videos are usually displayed with black bars around them. The new YouTube player will dynamically adapt itself for square, horizontal, and vertical videos. Tapping the full-screen button will show the video as it was shot, without the need of black bars. Additionally, the video will shift to the traditional horizontal shape once you scroll to the contents below.

"In the coming weeks, the YouTube mobile app will dynamically adapt to whatever size you choose to watch it in. That means if you're watching a vertical, square or horizontal video, the YouTube player will seamlessly adapt itself, filling the screen exactly the way they should," said YouTube in its blog post in June.

While the dynamic player is not yet available for Android, YouTube had rolled out support for vertical videos on the mobile platform back in 2015. This feature, however, has the limitation of adjoining black bars on the video when scrolling below it. The anticipated rollout of the new dynamic player is expected to fix this issue.

Google had recently made the decision to take down the official YouTube app from Amazon's Fire TV devices. In response, Amazon launched Firefox and Silk browsers to allow users to access YouTube web for watching videos on the platform.