The YouTube for Android has added playback support for any content in 4K resolution. Until now, the YouTube app for Android limited the playback quality of videos to the native resolution of the device, so that only phones with a 4K screen could play videos in 4K. However, from now on this restriction disappears and everyone will be able to choose the resolution quality.
Now, if your smartphone screen resoluiton is 720p or 1080p, which are the most common resolutions, you can increase the video quality up to 4K, as long as the video offers that resolution.
The change has come to the YouTube app for Android. But there are objective reasons why it is an improvement from which the user can benefit. If your phone has a 1080p screen and you play videos in that resolution, it does not mean that the quality you are getting is optimal. YouTube, like all other online video platforms, applies compression to audio and video formats, as well as decreasing the bitrate to reduce the size of the files being transmitted. And the same goes for 4K videos.
That is the reason why a Blu-ray movie can occupy tens of GB, while the same movie on Netflix, for example, occupies less than half. The limiting factor, of course, is storage, but also the Internet connection.
Thus, the change introduced by the YouTube app for Android allows you to improve the quality of the video, even if you do not have a device with the appropriate resolution. Ergo, if the screen of your mobile is 1080p, you will see a video in 4K at a higher quality than in 1080p, even if it does not reach that resolution. Yes, the same also happens on the PC.
