Shortly after Twitter announced that it would begin testing a better way to display images in its app, it is now doing the same for YouTube videos. According to a new post on Twitter’s support account, the company began testing a way to watch YouTube videos directly from the timeline within the Twitter for iOS app. That means it will be possible to click and play a video without having to leave the conversation currently being viewed.
Prior to this change, YouTube videos did not show a preview on iOS, so you would have to click on the link to start watching. This would take you out of the conversation to another screen where you could play the video or tap again to open the YouTube iOS app. Now, you would be able to scroll and watch videos without losing your place in the Twitter timeline.
The social network says it is using the YouTube iFrame Player API for this test, which will initially be available on iOS in the U.S., Japan, Canada and Saudi Arabia before rolling it out globally. It did not offer a timeframe for when it would be available to all Twitter users.
The company had announced in early March that it would work toward a better media viewing experience in its app, including for sharing and viewing media, such as photos and videos. With the photo preview test launched for iOS and Android in recent days, Twitter now gives users a more accurate preview of how images look, for example. Previously, it automatically cropped images, often hiding key parts of a photo.
Twitter also recently announced the ability for users to upload 4K images on both Android and iOS, which can be accessed through a new feature in the “Data Usage” settings in the app.
These changes are not only welcome from a user annoyance perspective, but also tie into Twitter’s recently announced ambitions to become a platform that serves creators. The company said it will soon introduce a new subscription-based service called “Super Follow” that will allow creators to publish subscriber-only content on Twitter, such as newsletters, offers and other exclusive content, likely to include exclusive media. But to support creators, who often have their content distributed across social platforms on the web, Twitter needs to make the process of sharing that content, whether it’s photos, videos or anything else, seamless and native to the app.