YouTube is undoubtedly one of the primary destinations for music. Now Google is fulfilling one of the oldest wishes of users by granting them the ability to play a video on a loop. Additionally, content creators may also borrow clips from other videos.
YouTube lacks quite a few essential features that listeners take for granted on other music streaming platforms. Now Google is gradually amending the situation and making YouTube more music-friendly.
‘Loop’ button gradually exiting the extremely limited public testing:
It seems Google is finally letting music listeners access the same music video repeatedly. To date, listeners had to hit the ‘Reply’ icon at the end of the video.
The ‘Loop’ feature, which allows YouTube viewers to listen or watch the video repeatedly, had appeared a few weeks ago. However, very few viewers had access.
YouTube has started testing a Loop button for its Android app https://t.co/l2c0binAnC
— Android Central (@androidcentral) June 2, 2021
It seems Google is including several more YouTube users in the test. There’s still no assurance that Google will offer the ‘Loop’ button to every YouTube user.
The Loop button will certainly be a huge bonus to YouTube users who visit the platform to access soundtracks, playlists-built-as-a-single-video, ASMR, and other ambient music. Many listeners often wished they could loop videos while doing various activities.
"YouTube's new Loop button saves you from hitting replay every few minutes" Feeding your obsession
For a service that houses a lot of the world's music, YouTube certainly lacks some essential features that we take for granted on other music streaming pl… https://t.co/KS9braGU3d pic.twitter.com/v2d7Bh8y35
— SUDEER KAMAT (@5UD33RK4M4T) June 2, 2021
Incidentally, YouTube’s desktop variant has the feature. In fact, Loop existed for YouTube Web for a long time. It was the Android and iOS apps that lacked the feature.
Moving ahead, even Android and iPhone smartphone users could play a video on a loop by tapping the three-button logo and selecting Loop. The feature’s icon consists of a right-facing arrow on top, a left-facing arrow at the bottom with the number “1” sandwiched in between.
YouTube to allow selecting small clips from existing videos to create content?
Apart from the Loop button Google is also reportedly testing another feature called Clip. The feature allows content creators or YouTubers to create up to 60-second video clips from existing videos.
Love the new Clip feature @YouTube pic.twitter.com/F2wzlSknX3
— Anil Damodaran (@anildav) June 2, 2021
Needless to mention, YouTubers can share the clip, and most likely the video made from multiple clips, on other social media platforms.
A scissor icon represents the new Clip feature. Google is reportedly testing this new feature on both Android and iOS.
since when youtube got a Clip feature :O pic.twitter.com/L9AvuF2uR4
— L33 (@L33GALITY) June 1, 2021
It is quite likely YouTube is inspired by similar features on TikTok. The original, viral short-video platform has offered features that recycle content. In other words, Google could offer the feature to help boost its ‘Shorts’ platform.