X gets new immersive video player UI, but with one major annoyance

X’s product head, Nikita Bier, just announced that a big change is rolling out for the video player, at least for the iOS app right now. He called it a “new immersive video player” and said that it “badly needed a refresh.”

But there’s a catch that’s already rubbing users the wrong way. The update forces videos into a full-screen, cropped view instead of letting you watch them at their original aspect ratio. Several people immediately called out the problem in the replies, asking X to keep the full-width option.

When users asked whether they should now post portrait or horizontal videos, Bier said that portrait is the way to go. He explained that cropping videos was meant to push creators toward square formats, but added “We are a mobile company” and confirmed they’ll stop cropping vertical content going forward.

That sounds good on paper, except users are reporting the opposite. One creator pointed out that vertical videos are still getting cropped inside the player, with “a VERY SIGNIFICANT portion” cut off.

Others mentioned videos now appear in random sizes across the feed, which makes the browsing experience feel messy.

For what it’s worth, I still don’t see the new immersive UI with the blurred effect on my iPhone that has X version 11.66 installed. However, the buttons and other parts of the UI match those of the new immersive video player.

The timing here is interesting, given X has been pushing hard into video lately. Musk himself has attempted to get creators on board in the past, though it seems that hasn’t really worked out as Musk may have hoped, since most YouTube creators are still not uploading directly to X.

That said, the platform did make a change so that YouTube videos play within the app itself and offers no option for users to view the video on the YouTube app.

Meanwhile, Bier himself recently talked about building a video editor into X, though he questioned if manual editing would even matter soon with AI tools getting better.

Android users, as expected, aren’t happy about being left out once again. Multiple replies asked why the Android app keeps getting ignored, with one person flat-out saying they have to use the mobile browser instead because the app is “trash”.

Other complaints rolling in include a broken video scrubber, lack of watch history, and issues with video messaging in DMs. 

X has been juggling a lot on the video front. Its AI chatbot Grok added text-to-video generation a few months ago,  though it’s had its share of issues too. For now, iOS users will have to deal with the new player whether they like it or not.

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