YouTube Updates Logo and Announces New Features for iOS App and Desktop Site

YouTube today announced a few changes coming to the company's mobile apps and desktop site, including a visual update for the well-known YouTube logo. Instead of emphasizing the "Tube" part of the branding, the new icon places the TV-like icon to the left of the company's name.

Designed for our multi-screen world, the updated Logo combines a cleaned up version of the YouTube wordmark and Icon, creating a more flexible design that works better across a variety of devices, even on the tiniest screens.

Why’s it more flexible? When room is limited (say on a smartphone) you can use the brightened up Icon as an abbreviated Logo, which will be seen more easily and read more clearly. You’ll see the new Logo and Icon roll out across mobile and desktop today, and across all our other apps and services soon.

Additionally, the company announced a few updates coming to its iOS and Android apps including improved navigation, more gesture controls (like swiping left and right to jump between videos in a playlist), the ability to speed up or slow down videos, and a dedicated player for vertical videos. There's also a new way to browse more videos while in the YouTube player, by swiping up from the bottom of the screen to see suggested videos.

Both the app and desktop site are being updated to Google's Material Design aesthetic, which will refresh YouTube with a "simple and intuitive user experience that lets content shine," according to the company. With the new update to the desktop site, users will be able to turn on an official Dark Theme so they can browse YouTube more comfortably at night. The Verge reports that Dark Theme will be available on the YouTube mobile apps as well.

Many of the iOS, Android, and desktop updates will launch today, along with the all-new YouTube logo which users should begin noticing across mobile apps and online throughout the day.