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YouTube on Android TV just added the feature I've been wanting for years
Hello, playback speed controls!
YouTube for Android TV was released nearly six years ago, in August of 2015, with one glaring omission: no playback speed controls. Over thirty releases or so, the feature was still nowhere to be seen, forcing us to watch videos at normal speeds. No slowing down if you want to grab all the details of a scene in slow-mo, no speeding up for videos of easy-going talkers or unrushed scenes. Until now, that is. If you open the YouTube app on your Android TV set, top box, or Chromecast with Google TV today, you should have the option — at least if the server gods are on your side.
YouTube is a lot of things to a lot of people, but for gamers, it's the ultimate cheat guide to every game, ever. If you can't figure out how Nathan Drake is supposed to get through that tower scene with the snipers or you're stumped over the pattern needed to survive 8 more seconds of Cup Head, you're going straight to YouTube. But depending on the game, you might have to sit through 20 painstaking minutes of slow gameplay to understand a strategy, or you might have to rewatch the same clip a dozen times to spot the timing needed for each move. That just got a lot easier as the YouTube Gaming app just added playback speed controls, and they're a bit faster to access than on the regular YouTube app.
Earlier today, YouTube started enabling the Material Design YouTube site for everyone, and announced a new logo. But a few changes were also revealed for the Android app, which are included in today's YouTube 12.32.60 update.
Here at Android Police, us writers are encouraged not to use the word "finally" in titles, as it can manufacture unnecessary excitement for something that not a lot of people may care about. However, for something as miraculous as this, there really is no better word to use. Google has at long last begun testing speed controls in the YouTube Android app, something that people have been wanting for years. It's about time.