google: Google is reportedly testing a new autoplay feature for the YouTube app – Times of India

Google is making more changes to the autoplay ‘Playback in feed’ feature. Android Police has reported that Google has started A/B testing a new auto playback feature for the feed.
According to the report, the YouTube app now automatically starts playing any video from the Discover tab and while doing this, the background and the rest of the YouTube home feed gets slightly dark to highlight the video. The new playback also introduces new controls for mute, share and more.
The new interface was spotted on the beta version 17.10.35 and the report suggests that this is also a part of the company’s server-side testing. This seems similar to Chrome’s Turn Off the Lights extension for Chrome, which dims the rest of the interface except the video player.
No doubt, the feature seems to be good, especially if you are trying to focus on the video only. But in the case of the YouTube app, it seems kind of forced for users as the video will be random and appear like an ad, even for a moment.
However, it is not sure whether Google will allow users to manually enable or disable this feature like the ability to control the auto playback functionality. But, considering the past, Google will most likely offer an option to control this.
It is to remind us that the feature is still in beta phase and it is likely that it might never make its way to the final build of the app.