by For those of us who watch online videos incessantly, a native Mac app like Play+ for YouTube is a handy thing to keep in the Dock. It’s a minimal player that makes some helpful and appreciated tweaks to the Web UI for easier navigation and multitasking, but also one that feels too streamlined in spots and would benefit greatly from customization options.
Compared to the cluttered look of the YouTube homepage, Play+ is comparatively bare, simply showing a grid of videos to choose from. It’s bland, with a generic grey-heavy aesthetic, but solidly quick to load—and it’s during actual playback that the app’s revised layout proves a positive. Play+ breaks the viewing window into three frames, split between the clip itself, a sidebar for comments, and a segment for browsing other clips. What’s great is that you can continue to watch the video while searching for more below, as well as read and post comments. And you can pick between Flash and HTML5 playback, the latter of which promises fewer ads.
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