YouTube's dynamic player for square and vertical video arrives on Android

YouTube is rolling out an update for its Android app that will adjust the player dynamically to fit vertical and square videos. That means no more black bars taking up valuable screen real estate.

Square and vertical videos will now expand to fill the available space, with the regular player controls underneath. When playing a vertical video, tapping the maximise icon at the bottom right of the player will expand it to fill the whole screen. When you scroll down, the player will adjust to the usual horizontal format by cropping the video.

YouTube announced the dynamic player in June last year, and rolled it out for iOS devices in December. To see if your Android app has been updated, check out this vertical stock footage from Asus.

Updates for all platforms

YouTube is currently releasing a slew of updates for various platforms. It recently began testing picture-in-picture video for its desktop player, which keeps a video playing in a small window while you browse the rest of the site.

It's also introduced the ability to stream to YouTube Live directly from a web browser – a feature that was previously exclusive to the mobile apps.

Via 9to5Google