Image: T. Schneider / Shutterstock.com
Google is expanding the features of YouTube Premium, bringing the benefits of the paid subscription service to more devices, according to a recent community thread post. YouTube Premium subscribers will see the following improvements:
High-quality audio: Enjoy a more immersive listening experience with improved audio quality (256 Kbps). This feature, previously available in the YouTube Music app and only as an opt-in experiment on YouTube, is now fully available in the YouTube apps for Android and iOS. (But only for official/premium music videos and Art Tracks.)
Faster playback speeds: You can now speed up playback on multiple devices in 0.05x increments up to a maximum of 4x. Previously only available on Android and iOS, this YouTube Premium feature is now fully available on Android, iOS, and the web.
Skip forward: Jump to the most interesting parts of videos faster by seamlessly skipping to the most important moments via AI and your user data. This feature is already available on Android, iOS, and the web and is now also available for YouTube on smart TVs and gaming consoles.
Shorts Smart Downloads: Automatically download your favorite Shorts based on your previous viewing history so you always have something new to watch—without you having to do a thing. Previously available on Android and as an opt-in experiment on iOS, this feature is now fully available on iOS.
Shorts Picture-in-Picture (PiP): Have your Shorts play in a small window while you scroll through other content on your device. Previously available on Android and as an opt-in experiment on iOS, this feature is now fully available on iOS.
How much is YouTube Premium?
For individuals, YouTube Premium costs $13.99/month or $139.99/year. Families can get YouTube Premium Family for $22.99/month while students can get YouTube Premium Student for $7.99/month.
If you only care about an ad-free viewing experience and none of the other benefits that come with YouTube Premium, you might want to look into the new YouTube Premium Lite option. However, even Premium Lite still has some ads in some areas of YouTube.
This article originally appeared on our sister publication PC-WELT and was translated and localized from German.
Author: Hans-Christian Dirscherl, Managing Editor, PC-WELT
Hans-Christian Dirscherl began his IT life with Autoexec.bat and config.sys, Turbo-Pascal and C, Sinix and Wordperfect. He has been writing on almost all IT topics for around 25 years, covering everything from news to reviews and buying guides.
