In the past, there was a lot of focus and emphasis on recording videos horizontally. This is because the wider format looks better on phones, TVs, and our computer screens. These days, thanks to platforms like TikTok, vertical videos are all the rage, and the X app for iOS has been updated to make it feel more immersive.
X app gets a new immersive video play
In a post on X by the company’s head of product, Nikita Bier, the X app for iOS has been given an update. The update introduces a new video player for the X app, which is supposed to make it more immersive for users. With this new video player, users have the option to expand videos to full screen with a single tap.
From there, users can scroll through videos by swiping up or down, similar to how you would scroll through videos on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts. While Bier calls this experience more immersive, it seems that not everyone feels the same. This is because when users expand the video to full screen, it forces all videos into a cropped mode. This is because not all videos were necessarily recorded for this aspect ratio.Â
But X isn’t stopping there with this update. Bier has also hinted that the company will push more video-focused updates in the future.
The next TikTok?
That being said, it’s not surprising that X is working on more video-related updates to the platform. The popularity of TikTok has definitely played a role in that. Prior to being acquired by Elon Musk, X (formerly known as Twitter) was known more for being a micro-blogging platform.
It allowed users and companies to post small and short updates, thoughts, opinions, and so on. It was never really known as a video platform, even if it did support videos. However, like we said, the popularity of TikTok might have forced X to reexamine its strategy in order to get itself a bigger slice of the pie. To that end, it is incorporating tools like Grok’s text-speech generation feature.
Will X ever become a true competitor to TikTok or Reels? That remains to be seen, but that’s something the company seems to be working towards.
The post X’s New Immersive Video Player Is Very TikTok, but There’s a Catch appeared first on Android Headlines.
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