Tag: youtube

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Mobile Syrup

Download the YouTube app on Roku ASAP

If you have a Roku streaming device without YouTube’s app on it, you should download it before December 9th. The two giant companies are fighting, and Roku’s deal to host YouTube in its store is set to expire very shortly.

That said, anyone who already has the app downloaded will be fine. However, the app likely won’t get more updates until the two media giants broker a deal.

This wouldn’t be the first time that a corporate fight resulted in YouTube being pulled from a service. Back in 2017, Google removed YouTube from Fire TV as the two companies feuded over Chromecast sales in Amazon’s store.

While the public has been aware of this Roku vs YouTube (Google) feud since April 2021, at least one of the companies is lying about what’s causing it. Roku says that Google is trying to muscle its way to the top of search ranking on the platform and some other perks that other apps aren’t privy to on Roku’s platform. On the other hand, Google says that it’s just trying to renew its existing deal with Roku.

Source: The Verge 

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Download the YouTube app on Roku ASAP

If you have a Roku streaming device without YouTube’s app on it, you should download it before December 9th. The two giant companies are fighting, and Roku’s deal to host YouTube in its store is set to expire very shortly.

That said, anyone who already has the app downloaded will be fine. However, the app likely won’t get more updates until the two media giants broker a deal.

This wouldn’t be the first time that a corporate fight resulted in YouTube being pulled from a service. Back in 2017, Google removed YouTube from Fire TV as the two companies feuded over Chromecast sales in Amazon’s store.

While the public has been aware of this Roku vs YouTube (Google) feud since April 2021, at least one of the companies is lying about what’s causing it. Roku says that Google is trying to muscle its way to the top of search ranking on the platform and some other perks that other apps aren’t privy to on Roku’s platform. On the other hand, Google says that it’s just trying to renew its existing deal with Roku.

Source: The Verge 

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Sign up for YouTube Premium and get three months free

‘Black Friday’ is almost here, and YouTube wants to make it special with this Cyber Week offer.

Between now and December 6th, you can get three months of YouTube Premium for absolutely nothing. YouTube Premium includes ad-free YouTube and YouTube Music and gives you access to play media in the background and offline downloads.

It’s worth noting that the promotion is available to new users only, and if you’ve claimed a free trial in the past, your mileage for the current promotion may vary. Head to Youtube.com/Premium to claim your first three months off, post which, you’ll be charged $11.99 per month.

Image credit: YouTube

Source: Youtube 

Categories
Mobile Syrup

YouTube to hide dislike count across the platform, dislike button will remain active

YouTube has formally announced that it will make video dislike counts private across all YouTube videos. This follows an experimental phase where the company measured ways to protect creators from harassment and dislike attacks.

The changes are said to be gradually rolling out today. Once in effect, a viewer will still be able to leave feedback by way of using the dislike button. However, contrary to how the system previously worked, the total number of dislikes will not be viewable by the public. Instead, that metric will only be shown to the creator of the channel.

On Google’s official YouTube blog, the company states that earlier this year, it experimented with ways to protect content creators and channels from targeted dislike attacks. As a part of this experiment, YouTube hid the dislike count and found that viewers were less likely to drive the total number up. As such, this measure will soon be used across the board. This will, hopefully, deter viewers from driving up the dislike numbers purely based on mob mentality.

Although not stated by YouTube, it’s within reason to assume larger companies and advertisers were none too keen to see their videos receive an overwhelmingly negative like to dislike ratio. One notable standout is the ‘Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack — Overview Trailer’, which received 18K likes and 173K dislikes. YouTube itself has been the victim of dislike attacks as evident by its annual ‘Rewind‘ videos (which are dead).

YouTube assures users that the dislike button can still be used to tune recommendations and share feedback to individual creators. The company is aware that this transition may not be favoured by all. Though, YouTube states that it believes “this is the right thing to do for the platform.”

Source: YouTube

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Mobile Syrup

YouTube Music now offers free background listening in Canada

Canadian YouTube Music users can now listen to tunes in the background.

Google made the announcement last month, but the feature has now officially rolled out here.

With this update, you can continue to listen to YouTube Music while using other apps or when your phone’s screen is off.

This feature is available via YouTube Music’s free tier, meaning ads are supported. Otherwise, YouTube Premium, which includes YouTube Music Premium for ad-free music, is priced at $11.99/month.

In addition to background playback, the free YouTube Music tier does support continuous stations and shuffle and Google’s hands-free Assistant driving mode.

Via: Google Canada

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Mobile Syrup

R.I.P. YouTube Rewind 2010 – 2019

YouTube has cancelled its annual yearly recap video known as the ‘YouTube Rewind’ series.

The series of videos launched back in 2010 and at least for the first few years, people seemed to really like the occasionally funny recap that threw back to popular moments and memes from the past year. Then as the years went on and the world became increasingly jaded, people rather quickly started to hate YouTube Rewind’s videos.

For example, back in 2018 YouTube’s Rewind Video was the most disliked video of all time, and as of right now, it has 19 million downvotes. Then in what seemed like an effort to change things up, Google’s 2019 video featured some of the top videos and creators of the year.

There wasn’t a Rewind video in 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and now, we know for certain that there will never be another one.

However, in a recent tweet, YouTube’s Creators account stated that it will launch a different kind of annual experience, so it looks like there will still be some kind of end-of-year recap.

Source: @YouTubeCreators

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Mobile Syrup

YouTube adds new ‘continue watching’ feature to web app

Users have discovered a new way to resume content on their mobile devices that they previously watched on the web or vice versa. The catch is that you need to use YouTube’s website instead of its app to enable this feature.

When you watch content through the web version of YouTube on a desktop or an Android/iOS tablet, you get access to a mini-player that keeps your content playing while you browse around looking for something else to watch.

If you were watching something on another device, now that tiny player appears as soon as you open the YouTube website and asks if you want to continue watching. For example, if you watched something on your phone or tablet, this window would also appear on your desktop.

Of course, you need to be logged into the same Google account across the devices for this feature to work.

While not the most game-changing feature, it’s still a good demonstration of a minor feature that makes the viewing experience more seamless on Google’s video platform. While convenient, it will be interesting to see if the company brings this functionality to its mobile apps or if it adds some sort of Netflix-like ‘Continue Watching’ area to YouTube’s homepage.

As someone who watches a lot of YouTube, this is pretty handy and a lot easier than being forced to dive into my history every time I change the device mid-show.

Via: 9to5Google

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Mobile Syrup

YouTube will now block all anti-vax content

YouTube is updating its medical misinformation policies to include a ban on all anti-vax content.

In a blog post, the company notes that this marks an expansion of existing policies that blocked COVID-19 related vaccine videos based on a number of criteria. Now, videos about any type of vaccine, be it the flu or MMR shots, will be prohibited.

“We’ve steadily seen false claims about the coronavirus vaccines spill over into misinformation about vaccines in general, and we’re now at a point where it’s more important than ever to expand the work we started with COVID-19 to other vaccines,” writes YouTube in the blog.

“Specifically, content that falsely alleges that approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claims that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of disease, or contains misinformation on the substances contained in vaccines will be removed.”

Examples of this include content falsely claiming that approved vaccines cause autism, cancer or infertility, or contain location tracking devices. The company says it consulted with medical experts when developing the new policies.

For more on approved COVID-19 vaccines in Canada, visit the Government of Canada’s website.

Source: YouTube

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Mobile Syrup

YouTube beta testing video downloads on desktop

YouTube now has a new experimental feature that allows desktop users to download videos to their devices for offline listening.

If you’re a YouTube Premium subscriber, you can go to the YouTube Expiremintal feature page to enable this feature. Keep in mind that if you do this and have the picture-and-picture (PiP) experiment turned on, it will be disabled. This kind of sucks, and since I find the PiP feature more useful, I hope YouTube fully implements it soon.

The ability to download videos likely doesn’t sound very useful to anyone with a desktop computer, but Chromebook and laptop owners might find it appealing. One possible use case is to queue up some sick YouTube content for long car rides or other away from home excursions.

Google says that anyone with the latest versions of Chrome, Edge or Opera can use the new feature, but it enabled a download button and folder on Edge in my tests and didn’t work. Chrome prompted me to download the YouTube web app, and from there, I was able to get the feature working.

Once the feature is enabled, you can download videos by clicking on a download button next to the like and share buttons in the action bar. You can also click on the three-dot menu from any of the more browseable pages to download content.

Overall this is a pretty solid update, and like the PiP feature on iOS, I’m still perplexed that these aren’t rolling out to everyone, and instead, YouTube Premium members need to opt into them.

Source: YouTube 

Categories
Mobile Syrup

YouTube beta testing video downloads on desktop

YouTube now has a new experimental feature that allows desktop users to download videos to their devices for offline listening.

If you’re a YouTube Premium subscriber, you can go to the YouTube Expiremintal feature page to enable this feature. Keep in mind that if you do this and have the picture-and-picture (PiP) experiment turned on, it will be disabled. This kind of sucks, and since I find the PiP feature more useful, I hope YouTube fully implements it soon.

The ability to download videos likely doesn’t sound very useful to anyone with a desktop computer, but Chromebook and laptop owners might find it appealing. One possible use case is to queue up some sick YouTube content for long car rides or other away from home excursions.

Google says that anyone with the latest versions of Chrome, Edge or Opera can use the new feature, but it enabled a download button and folder on Edge in my tests and didn’t work. Chrome prompted me to download the YouTube web app, and from there, I was able to get the feature working.

Once the feature is enabled, you can download videos by clicking on a download button next to the like and share buttons in the action bar. You can also click on the three-dot menu from any of the more browseable pages to download content.

Overall this is a pretty solid update, and like the PiP feature on iOS, I’m still perplexed that these aren’t rolling out to everyone, and instead, YouTube Premium members need to opt into them.

Source: YouTube