Probably one of the most annoying things that happens when you’re watching a YouTube video, particularly when your Internet connection isn’t all that great, is seeing that spinning “wheel of death” that tells you that the video is still loading. The more frustrating part is that it doesn’t tell you how long it will take. Well, that is about to change, at least for the Android app, as you’ll get more information now as to how many seconds or minutes before you can watch the video in full.
Google is now giving you a peek behind the curtain, sort of. While the video is still buffering, you will now see how much data is being buffered and from that, you can estimate how long it will take. And once the video is ready, you’ll see the text “ready to watch” which means that yes, it is now ready to watch. This new feature will probably not cure your network connection problems, but at least it will manage your expectations when waiting for your video to load instead of you staring at that annoying wheel.
The update to the YouTube app will also help you understand what’s going on in the viral video world (to a certain extent) or give you something to do when you’re bored. That’s because you now have a trending tab, which will feature an ever changing list of what are the most popular videos at a certain period of time, whether it’s the latest music video from Korean phenom Psy or a hilarious video of a man spectacularly falling off a bike, or cute cat videos. Just make sure you’re not supposed to be doing something important before falling into the rabbit hole of trending, viral videos.
The buffering information is slowly rolling out to Android users, so just patiently stare at the wheel of death if it’s not yet come to you. The trending tab is now visible on the browser version, as well as the Android app, once you’ve updated it.
