YouTube brings HDR support for iPhone XS and XS Max

Apple's newly launched iPhones i.e the iPhone XS and XS Max have undeniably one of the best displays you can spot on a smartphone. Recently Display Mate has revealed that the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have the best display on a smartphone. Both the iPhone XS and XS Max features a similar display and has a QHD+ resolution. Despite featuring a powerful display the new iPhones were not able to play HDR videos on YouTube which was quite disappointing. However, now, YouTube has added the support for the HDR videos for both the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.

As per some reports from the web, YouTube didn't have the HDR feature ready for the iPhone XS and XS Max during the sale-day. Now, YouTube has updated its app to bring the support for HDR playback on the new-gen iPhones. With the addition of this feature, users will be able to play High Dynamic Range videos on YouTube.

As of now, YouTube on iOS platform can still not play videos with resolutions which are higher than 1080p and it appears to be an issue from Apple's end rather than YouTube. The reason behind this is that, in order to play videos which are high in resolution than 1080p, YouTube requires the devices to use a VP9 codec. The VP9 codec requires low bandwidth while playing high-resolution videos and Apple has not added this codec to any of the newly launched iPhones. This is the reason that the new Apple devices were unable to play HDR videos and were missing from YouTube's Signature Device list.

YouTube had released the HDR content feature for the Android device back in September 2017. However, the feature was announced for the iOS devices earlier in May this year only. Now, considering that YouTube has already added the HDR support for the new Apple devices within days of its launch is a sign that the company is also looking after Apple users which is a good thing. So, if you own a new iPhone XS or XS Max and were not able to watch HDR content till now then you don't need to worry anymore as you can enjoy the HDR content on your new iPhones from now on.