With its premium users, YouTube is testing a new mobile app function that lets them zoom in on any video. According to 9to5Google, the most recent opt-in experimental feature allows users to pinch to zoom in on movies. This action is supported in both full-screen landscape and portrait views.
The zoom option will reportedly remain in trial until September 1st, giving YouTube roughly a month to collect user feedback and make any adjustments before perhaps sending it out more broadly.
Open the options menu for YouTube on your phone or the website to enable pinch to zoom. There need to be a “test new features” area if you’re a YouTube Premium subscriber. The zoom capability is the only component that is currently available for testing.
I was unable to zoom in closer on any films right away after turning on the test, thus it appears there may be a delay between signing up and being able to perform the pinch gesture. However, once it’s turned on, you should be able to zoom in up to 8x.
On Android and iOS, there are existing accessibility features that allow users to zoom in on YouTube material, and doing so in a desktop browser is obviously quite simple. It is more practical to have it as an optional native feature in the mobile app, though. A long-time feature on Android, picture-in-picture mode was finally made accessible by YouTube for the iPhone and iPad last month after being tested first by premium users.
