Mobile navigation is all about the swipe these days, and now even YouTube is joining in. The platform has started rolling out an update for iOS devices, giving users a way to view the next video in the list by swiping left or right. Swipe forward to view the next recommended video and backward if you want to resume watching the previous one — according to TechCrunch, the previous video will even start playing where you left off. And, yes, it works in portrait and landscape fullscreen modes.
The new swipe-based navigation could make it even easier to discover new content creators on the platform and make it quicker to browse around to find videos to watch. YouTube is most likely hoping that it could lead to longer hours spent on the platform, since it feels more natural swiping on a touchscreen display than having to scroll down and tap on the next video to play.
Seeing as most viewers watch YouTube on mobile, it only makes sense that the company is conjuring up more features for smaller touchscreen devices to get people even more hooked. Unfortunately, YouTube didn’t say when the feature will come out for Android, but iOS users can expect an update to hit their devices sometime this week.