Many people think it should have been done a long time ago, but YouTube has finally updated its iOSso that everyone can watch “vertical” videos the way they’re meant to be viewed: across the entire screen, instead of having black gaps on the left and right when they turn their phone sideways. YouTube announced that it planned to introduce this feature in August, and now some users have it enabled. But starting this week, it’s being enabled for everyone.
But as much as we hate vertical videos, we can't help but admit that they look great on our screen, taking up all the screen when we hold our phone upright - it's just the way all phones are meant to be held. With more and more vertical videos on YouTube, it's important to update the app to present things properly (especially since this feature has been available on Android for two years now).
One weird caveat: you'll likely encounter "vertical" videos that won't display full screen, like Selena Gomez's music video. It seems like there are a lot of "vertical" videos on YouTube that are actually coded to display with black gaps on the sides. Most of the videos I've tried to play so far have been like this. Hopefully, videos will stop loading this way now that YouTube fully supports vertical playback. But for now, there will still be a confusing transition period.
