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YouTube Enhances TV and Console App with New Features
Google has rolled out significant enhancements to the YouTube app designed specifically for TV and console users. These updates aim to improve user experience by providing additional content organization and functionality.
New Shelves and Categories
According to a recent announcement on its support forum, YouTube has introduced five fresh shelves or category types that will appear on user homepages. These additions are meant to make navigating content easier and more intuitive for users.
The new shelves include:
- Continue Your Search: Displays your top three searches.
- Listen Again: Highlights songs that you have previously searched for or listened to.
- Live Performances, Remixes, and Covers: Showcases related musical content.
- Primetime Channels: Features content from channels you have recently searched or watched.
- From Your Top Channels: Curates content based on your preferred channels.
Additional Features
The updates don’t stop with just new shelves. YouTube is adding a dedicated podcasts tab, allowing viewers to easily find and enjoy podcast content on their consoles and TVs. Furthermore, fans of Shorts will appreciate the newly introduced Shorts row in the Watch Next feed and a dedicated Shorts shelf in the subscription tab, enhancing the accessibility of these brief video clips.
Moreover, YouTube now supports looping for all content, extending this function beyond playlists, which was previously the only category accessible for looping. Enhanced inline previews for channels, subscriptions, and topic pages, along with immersive previews for channels, further enrich the user interface and experience.
Community Feedback and Requests
While these enhancements are commendable, some users express a desire for more customization options, such as the ability to hide Shorts content from their feeds. Recent reports indicate that Google may be exploring similar features for its smartphone app, which could cater to users looking to reduce their exposure to Shorts.
Overall, these developments reflect Google’s commitment to improving the YouTube experience on larger screens, and it will be interesting to see how these features are adopted by the user community.
Source
www.androidauthority.com