Essential shocked a lot of people at the beginning of the month by making Android 9.0 Pie available to PH-1 owners, the same day it was released by Google. While things have been pretty good so far, YouTube had a bit of a problem, as it did not allow users to pinch-to-zoom for a more immersive experience. Luckily, a new YouTube app update finally brings pinch-to-zoom capabilities to the Essential Phone, allowing users to pinch the video to get it to go full screen.
The YouTube app update, version 13.34.50, seems to bring the feature to those running Android 9.0 Pie on their Essential handset. Some users on Reddit are reporting that after you download the update, you might need to clear out the cache on the app before you see pinch-to-zoom as an option.
In order to do this, simply long press the YouTube app and click the "i" icon that will pop up in the new menu in the top right-hand corner. Once you select this, you should be in the App Info menu for YouTube. Be sure to click on "storage" and click "clear cache". If this does not work for you, try restarting the phone.
The new YouTube update can be downloaded directly from the Google Play Store.