We’ve been enjoying the past few updates that YouTube has been making to their mobile app. We are now able to listen to music from the video sharing app even while working on another app, and then later on we were able to have entire videos load while you pause it and wait for it to complete. Now, even when you’re away doing something else on another app, the video that you want to watch later on will still continue to load in the background.
That’s one of the things that has been on our YouTube wishlist for some time. Especially if your Internet connection isn’t that fast, it is frustrating to be waiting on a 2 minute video to load forever, and you can’t do anything else on your phone while it’s loading. That is now changing as YouTube will be allowing it to load in the background so you can check your mail, post on Facebook that you’re excited to finally watch that new music video that’s still loading, or update your other apps while doing so. Just make sure it’s not the YouTube app that you’re updating.
However, the rollout isn’t that immediate as it will be available for a first wave of users first. If you’re running Android N Developer Preview already, chances are you’re part of that first wave. You can check if your app is updated to that feature already by going to the settings, applications, then find YouTube and hit the “clear data” button. Then open the YouTube app once again and see if the video loads when you pause it and go to another app.
This is a pretty great feature to have now, especially if you have a new device that is capable of playing 4K 60-frames per second videos, but your WiFi or data connection just takes so long. Let’s see what else YouTube has up its digital sleeve in the next few months.
VIA: SlashGear
It could be a step toward less developed countries. Same idea as with offline google maps.