Newsletter 
It’s been just over two weeks since the latest YouTube update boasting new social features hit the Play Store and there’s already some speculation about what could be next for the Android app of the most popular Internet video service on the planet. As the code detectives over at XDA Developers discovered, there’s some code in the latest version (11.20.54) of the YouTube Android app which suggests that many of the traditional YouTube search filters which we’ve been using on our desktops for years will soon make their way to smartphones and tablets.
More specifically, the attentive folk at XDA discovered some strings referring to filters which allow users to search YouTube videos by their relevance, rating, and view count. Strings are basically just sequences of characters referring to some constant or – in this case – variable values. None of the discovered filters are yet available in the YouTube Android app, but chances are they will be. As for when exactly that could happen, one can only guess. The people who discovered the aforementioned strings seem to believe the filters will be available on mobile platforms in the very near future, but they haven’t really backed those claims with any other substantial evidence apart from the strings themselves. While one would think the sole fact these strings are present in the latest version of the YouTube app means the filters they’re related to are just around the corner, it’s possible developers included them months ago and they just haven’t been discovered until now.
In any case, the fact that the YouTube mobile app may soon be getting a more robust search features is definitely a positive one as its current capabilities are pretty rudimentary in comparison to the standard desktop browser version of the popular video streaming service which is a huge issue given how Google itself claims nearly half of all YouTube video views come from mobile devices.
In related news, YouTube may also be preparing some much more significant changes in the near future as the rumored YouTube Connect app is allegedly just around the corner and could potentially significantly change the practice of live-streaming videos.