YouTube has a shiny new video player for users to enjoy. Google’s online video site has confirmed via Twitter it has launched an updated look to its video player, complete with a simple transparent overlay.
The updated YouTube video player boasts a sleek look reminiscent of its mobile app, which makes sense considering the site now sees over 50% of visitors coming from mobile. The player’s see-through controls are laid overtop videos, and disappear after a few seconds if the user’s cursor isn’t sitting on the clip. The transparency allows more of the video to display on-screen, and the transparent look even sticks around in mobile and desktop embeds.
Our new player has brains & beauty: it works better on mobile embeds and transparent controls let your content shine! pic.twitter.com/MBwZcWD1XH
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— YouTube Creators (@YTCreators) August 3, 2015
YouTube’s new update appears to be the official implementation of a design tested back in April 2015. At the time, Android Central reported on a web browser hack for Chrome users which allowed them to see the new YouTube player look by editing their browser’s cookies. That hack revealed the updated YouTube player had a button for closed captioning, but it looks like that option has been removed in the current iteration.
YouTube rolled out the new video player globally on August 3, 2015, so all users should now be able to see the updated look.
