YouTube has a fresh and colourful new look on mobile, web, and TV

YouTube has announced a refresh of its app across multiple platforms that brings with it a new, colourful look – including on smart televisions.

The fresh new YouTube is rolling out now and the company says it’s all about adding colour to proceedings. To that end, something called ambient mode will take the main colour of the on-screen video and wash it over the rest of the interface. It’s all a homage to the way light bleeds out from a TV screen when viewed in the dark, apparently.

Unfortunately, ambient mode will only be available on the web and mobile, though, and even then you’ll need to be using the dark theme to see it. Those who prefer their YouTube to be a little brighter are out of luck, unfortunately.

Speaking of the dark theme, YouTube says that it’s now darker than ever in an attempt to make content pop more. There is some good news here, at least – the updated dark theme is coming to smart televisions as well as mobile and the YouTube website.

YouTube also wants to make it easier to click links, too. It says that YouTube links inside video descriptions will change to buttons, with frequent actions like downloading, sharing, and liking content now getting a cleaner layout to help minimize distractions.

Another enhancement is the addition of pinch to zoom, a feature that lets iPhone and Android users do just that – pinch a video to zoom into it. If that’s something you’ve always wanted to do, have at it. That’s one new feature that will be perfect for all those Bob Ross painting videos.

You can see examples of what YouTube’s changes mean for the way you use YouTube in the company’s announcement blog post, too.