One of the things I’ve always disliked about the YouTube app is how elusive the Status Bar becomes when you begin watching a video in landscape orientation. Obviously, I wouldn’t want the Status Bar to be in the way while a video was playing, but I also don’t like being compelled to switch to portrait orientation to check the time.
iOS developer Karimo299 has devised the ultimate solution and released it in the form of a new free jailbreak tweak called YTStatus. As you can discern for yourself in the before and after screenshot examples embedded above, this tweak implements the native iOS Status Bar into YouTube’s own video controls interface.
It is my humble opinion that YTStatus is the perfect solution to the missing Status Bar the YouTube app while enjoying videos in landscape orientation because YouTube’s video controls interface is something that can be invoked and dismissed with seemingly no effort on demand.
You don’t even have to pause the video to see the Status Bar; just tap anywhere in the video frame to bring up the interface, and viola, you have access to the time, your current battery level, and any wireless signal strength information that you might’ve been itching to see.
The YouTube video controls interface is semi-transparent, and it disappears in just a couple of seconds, ensuring that you never miss a moment of the video you’re watching. Furthermore, the Status Bar hardly takes up any space, so you aren’t compelled to lose any of the interface’s stock functionality.
YTStatus doesn’t come with any options to configure, and frankly, it doesn’t need any. It works as advertised right out of the box and seems to do a great job solving an ongoing issue that continues to peeve me to this day.
If you’re interested in downloading YTStatus, then you can download it for free from the Packix repository right now. The tweak supports all jailbroken iOS 11 and 12 devices that have the official YouTube app from Google installed, but it will not work with third-party YouTube apps.
Do you think YTStatus offers a good compromise for viewing the Status Bar in landscape mode while viewing videos in the YouTube app? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.