YouTube has today released a raft of new features for its mobile, web and TV applications: granular playback speed controls, redesigned mini-player, collaborative playlists, and badges.

So far, users could only control the increase in speed at a step of 0.25x. Now, with the latest update, YouTube will let users increase or decrease playback speed by 0.05x by tapping either on the "" or "".

The company also made it simpler to make collaborative playlists. You can share a link or a QR code for a playlist with somebody, and now users can add their own photos as a thumbnail or use the GenAI tool at YouTube to add one using a prompt.

Shortly, the capability to let collaborators vote on videos will also be available. This feature would also enable creators to gain video feedback through a playlist.

YouTube is also shaking things up slightly on the mobile app. When using an app in landscape, or horizontal mode, on Android, videos now have bigger thumbnails and bigger text, and the player itself is also more responsive to inputs, as well. These will land in the iOS app sometime later this year.

The mini-player also receives improvements, through which users can move and resize the player while scrolling YouTube.
Video previews are more immersive in the TV app. Then, the user interface while watching YouTube Shorts on the big screen.

A sleep timer test was launched a few weeks ago, but only available to paid YouTube users. The feature lets users set a timer, during which playback automatically pauses after the time has expired.

YouTube is also adding badges on the YouTube and YouTube Music app to give content creators another way to interact with their community: The first set has two badges called "first batch of paid members" and "correctly completed a quiz." This update comes to the Communities space that YouTube launched in September to let users interact with creators.