YouTube Premium: What’s New This Month
Most of us subscribe to YouTube Premium because we can’t stand watching ads. Sure, some also enjoy YouTube Music as part of the fee, but we really pay YouTube every single month because watching ads before or during a YouTube video is an awful experience. So even though it wouldn’t be hard for Google to convince us to keep paying our monthly Premium dues, they are at least trying by adding new features.
For this month, YouTube is giving YouTube Premium subscribers five new features to try out, three of which are in their experimental category. In other words, you get two features to just play with and another three that you probably need to opt into.
Let’s run through each of YouTube Premium’s new goodies:
“Jump Ahead” Button
Thanks to “a combination of AI and viewership data,” YouTube videos can now offer a “Jump ahead” button that appears when you double-tap to skip ahead in a video. Once you double-tap, this new button appears and lets you skip to parts of the video that AI and other people think you’ll want to go to. This feature should be available to Android users today, while iOS users have to wait a “few weeks.”
Shorts Gets Picture-in-Picture
Watchers of YouTube Shorts can now continue watching Shorts as they multitask, thanks to a picture-in-picture introduction. If you need to check messages, scroll Chrome, or argue with some goofball on a social network, you can do so with a YouTube Shorts clip playing in the corner.
Experimental Features
Smart Downloads for YouTube Shorts
Like other smart downloads from YouTube that automatically download fresh content in the background on your device, YouTube Shorts can now do the same thing. This means lots of Shorts clips downloaded to your phone for offline viewing when the time comes that you might not have an internet connection.
Conversational AI
This feature apparently left but is now back in the US on Android. You can ask AI questions about videos, get suggestions, etc., all without interrupting your playback experience.
Redesigned Watch Page
Finally, there is a redesigned watch page for YouTube that you can try out. This experience rolled out to some folks, and they apparently got really angry about it, so it seems that Google will instead make it an opt-in idea. I’ve had it on for some time, and it’s fine. It has taken a bit of getting used to, but my life is unchanged. Give it a look!
To opt into YouTube experimental features, head to youtube.com/new and turn them on.
YouTube Premium continues to enhance its value proposition with these new features, making it easier to justify the monthly subscription fee. Whether you’re avoiding ads or exploring new functionalities, there’s always something to look forward to with YouTube Premium.
