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YouTube preps some new app icons, but what are they meant for?
Oct 12, 2026 — 4:27 PM ET
- Three new YouTube icons have mysteriously popped up in the app’s latest update.
- Code references allude to icon preferences, suggesting users may get a choice in which they see.
- It’s unclear if this might ultimately emerge as a Premium-only feature.
It may not happen every day, but every so often our favorite apps find themselves trying out a new icon. Sometimes that’s a company like Google overhauling its design language, or one like Spotify that’s just trying to ride a recent trend. We’re starting off this week with a look at some icons we just spotted in one very popular app, and your guess may be as good as ours for why they’re here.
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As we were checking out YouTube version 21.41.525 for Android, looking for signs of anything new, we found ourselves able to trigger the app to start using one of three new icons:
Let’s take a closer look at each of those:
We’ve got what’s kind of a plain, monochrome, slightly shaded version of the app’s current icon, one that Android Authority staff have been arguing over whether it looks more like frosting or paint (delicious either way), and one with a pronounced CRT-like effect.
So far, though, we haven’t spotted much else in the app that gives us a more concrete clue as to what Google’s planning for these. We don’t see any identifiable or otherwise descriptive labels attached to the graphical assets, and these are the first alternate icons like this we’ve seen the app pick up.
<Preference android:key="app_icon" app:iconSpaceReserved="false" app:isPreferenceVisible="false" />That said, strings like the one you see above suggest that Google may one day give us a choice of app icons, with this new “preference” line appearing in this release. But as to Google’s broader plans here, or the meaning it might be thinking about for each of these new icon designs, your guess may be as good as ours right now.
In light of that, we challenge you to put together your best theories for these icon finds and share your top guess down in the comments. Is the CRT logo for users who watch a ton of gaming streams? Could the frosting logo (Editor’s note: It’s definitely frosting) be for everyone who’s obsessed with GBBO clips?
Maybe we’ll be getting even more to choose from beyond just this early selection — could getting to pick your own custom app icon ultimately emerge as a Premium perk?
Swing on through the comments below and share your thoughts!
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