YouTube is trying a way to help patients like me watch videos as quickly as possible. The test, which YouTube Premium subscribers can sign up for, allows you to long-press the video player to set the playback speed to 2x, according to YouTube Experiences page (via 9to5Google).
To me, this sounds like a huge upgrade; Currently, overclocking YouTube can take a few annoying steps. In the mobile app, you need to click on the video, click on the three dots menu, click on playback speed, and then You can choose from different options. It’s a similar set of steps on the mobile and desktop web. (Although, on desktop, you can use the Shift and less than or greater keys to speed up or slow things down without digging through menus.) The new feature seems to take some inspiration from TikTok: If you long-press a TikTok video, the app will pop up A bunch of different options, including a playback speed menu.
The trials page says the YouTube long-press test is available until August 13th. I’m not on Premium so I can’t test it myself, but I very much hope YouTube rolls out the feature to everyone sometime after the trial ends. (And if anyone in YouTube is reading this, please let me watch videos 2x faster.)
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