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YouTube HDR comes to iPhone X

Google's streaming service joins Netflix in enabling better picture performance from users of Apple's flagship smartphone.

Ty Pendlebury Editor
Ty Pendlebury is a journalism graduate of RMIT Melbourne, and has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He majored in Cinema Studies when studying at RMIT. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
  • Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
Ty Pendlebury
Apple iPhone X Youtube HDR
David Katzmaier / CNET

YouTube has rolled out high dynamic range (HDR) to users of the iPhone X , enabling improved contrast and color on HDR-enabled YouTube videos.

As spotted by Macrumors, videos like those from the popular HDR Channel, are now able to be viewed in HDR mode. Neither the iPhone X nor the Apple TV are able to output the videos in 4K, however. 

Not to be confused with HDR for photography, high dynamic range for video and TVs expands the range of both contrast and color significantly. Bright parts of the image can get much brighter, so the image seems to have more "depth." Colors get expanded to show more bright blues, greens, reds and everything in between. OLED-powered screens like the one on the iPhone X are particularly adept at showing HDR.

The HDR capability isn't stated in the release notes for the latest 13.17 update which only lists "General fixes and stability improvements".

YouTube is the latest company to enable HDR for the iPhone X after  Netflix  turned the capability on with  iOS 11 in September 2017.

Representatives for YouTube did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.