YouTube is giving its TV apps a much-needed boost with new features
Summary
- YouTube has announced a handful of new features for its Smart TV apps as part of a quarterly update.
- The update brings multiple improvements to the YouTube Shorts experience on TVs, including a cleaner interface and multiple audio track options.
- It also brings full-screen channel previews and the ability to set parent codes to restrict unauthorized access to adult accounts by kids in the household.
The YouTube viewing experience on televisions improves with each update, though there’s room for improvement. Recognizing this fact, the YouTube team has just announced several additions to the YouTube app for Smart TVs and select gaming consoles, including better channel previews, an improved YouTube Shorts experience, and more.
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These changes were announced by YouTube as part of its quarterly update (Q1 2025). The first on this extensive list of changes is updated previews on channel headers, giving users a fullscreen view of the channel’s top video and helping them dive into it immediately. YouTube says it’s also adding new “Subscribe” buttons to the watch pages of both standard YouTube videos and Shorts content.
The video platform is finally recognizing that the YouTube Shorts experience on TVs is far from ideal. YouTube says it has improved the playback of Shorts content on its TV app with “standardized buttons and a cleaner right-hand side of the page,” which should go a long way in improving the viewing experience.
Next up, users will be able to cast something from their phone to the TV and watch a YouTube Shorts clip on their phone, all without impacting playback on the television. While I can’t think of many scenarios where this would be useful for me, there’s no denying this will be handy for many out there. To cap off the Shorts-related announcements, YouTube says Smart TV users can now choose between multiple dubbed audio tracks from the video player’s menu.
A handy new parental control setting is here
In what will come as good news for parents, YouTube is letting you set a “Parent code” to restrict kids from accessing the profiles of adults in the household. Furthermore, It will restrict the ability to watch content through signed-out accounts. Parents should find this new feature on the YouTube app’s Settings page.
YouTube is also bringing a more seamless sign-in experience to Android TV. Starting now, users can sign in to YouTube on their TV using the YouTube smartphone app, provided both the phone and the television are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. You will then have to “select the number on your phone that matches the code that you see on your TV to sign in,” YouTube says.
Lastly, YouTube will automatically switch to the account your phone is signed in to while casting to another television. This is a great way to make sure the watch history and recommendations stay unaffected, especially when you’re sharing a television with multiple members of the household.
These new additions should be live immediately based on YouTube’s announcement, and we’re already noticing a few of them. Are you seeing any of these upgrades to the YouTube app on your television?
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