YouTube tests new 'pinch to zoom' feature with premium members

Google's video sharing platform YouTube has been testing a new mobile app feature with its premium subscribers that will allow them to zoom in on any video.

According to tech platform 9to5Google, the latest opt-in experimental feature enables a "pinch-to-zoom" gesture for all YouTube videos. The gesture works both in the portrait and landscape mode.

As per the company, the zoom feature will remain in testing until September 1, giving them about a month to gather user feedback and refine things, before potentially rolling it out to a wider audience

“If you’re a Premium member, you can find the new feature in the YouTube app on Android; just tap your profile photo and then hit Your Premium benefits. From there, you can find the Try new features page and turn on YouTube’s pinch to zoom,” the site explained.

According to The Verge, the only feature currently available for testing is the zoom function. It seems there might be a delay between opting for the test and actually being able to use the pinch gesture, as they were unable to zoom in closer on any videos immediately after toggling it on. However, once active, users should be able to zoom in at up to 8x.

There are already ways to zoom in on YouTube's content with various accessibility functions on Android and iOS, and obviously, it's very easy to do so in a desktop browser, but having it as an optional native feature in the mobile app is all the more convenient.

• Saudi Arabia asks YouTube to remove offensive ads