Beau HD reviews the new YouTube app with Material Design. While the core functionality is the same, the YouTube app is now much more aesthetically pleasing. The menu bar slides in from the left, content morphs in and out of view, and the app as a whole is consistent with the Material Design UI found in Android 5.0 Lollipop.
This is the YouTube app, my favorite app in existence; which finally got updated with Material Design and I’m going to walk you through how it looks and what is new.
After booting up the new YouTube app, you’ll see that the color is a big component of the new app and just Material Design in general. You’ll notice the banner on top will change colors to match the content and color scheme of the page you’re on. Since we’re on the main YouTube page, it’s red because Google decided it should have a red theme to it.
If we go through each page, you’ll find the What to Watch page. Subscriptions, Uploads, and etc. The banner remains consistent in its color. What’s cool is that it actually changes to match the theme of the channel you’re viewing. So if you go to PhoneDog, you’ll see that it’s blue to match the PhoneDog colors. If you go to my channel, it will match the orange theme going on in my channel. And so on, it changes to match each channel; which helps you get more immersed into the content and just plainly looks nice.
The Menu bar slides in from the left, which isn’t that new. It is more useful and stylish now. Also, when you watch a video, the content morphs around the video like the Related Videos section, Comments and the Description. You can also slide down the video and essentially multi-task in the YouTube app while you watch a video.
Nothing’s really new here but the animations are much smoother than they used to be. I thought it would be cool for Google to sort of implement an animation when you make a video full screen since there is no animation there, maybe it would expand the video player. I think that would look pretty cool. It’s not currently there obviously.
The other minor tweaks with this app are with the Search and Menu settings icons that sort of morph in or fade into view when they are tapped. Some of the spacing and font are tweaked ever so slightly to give off a more clean and simple look. Overall, the new Material Design app doesn’t really add any new features. It just turns the YouTube app into eye candy as it’s just more pleasant to use and look at. Best of all, it’s consistent with Material Design theme found on Android 5.0 Lollipop and Continuity is even more present here.
Let me know what you think of the new Material Design in the app and if it looks better or worse.
