YouTube began testing an ‘Explore’ tab for its iOS app to improve content discovery back in July 2018. However, that feature never made it out of testing for the mobile app. That changes today as the video streaming platform announced via a Support page (spotted by AndroidPolice) that it is rolling out a change to the Android and iOS apps, that replaces the ‘Trending’ tab with the ‘Explore’ tab. The update is rolling to all users widely.
In addition to the default trending videos, the ‘Explore’ tab also provides users with “destination pages” at the top of the screen. This contains links to videos for topics such as Music, Gaming, News, Movies & Shows, Fashion & Beauty, and Learning. Interestingly, there is also a ‘Trending’ page for displaying just the trending videos, similar to the trending tab that was present earlier.
While scrolling through the Explore feed, users will also see sections such as “Creator on the Rise” and “Artist on the Rise”. The firm says that this section features new creators and emerging artists for users to discover.
The update seems to be a server-side change and should not require a separate app update. Since the feature just began rolling out to iOS and Android users, it may be a while till all users see the update to the Trending tab.