Enh req: Full sponsorblock & dearrow support

[rodalpho]

Excellent app! This could be the iOS equivalent of SmartTube!

My request is simple, full sponsorblock and dearrow support, ideally fully configurable also, to automatically skip sponsored segments and change both thumbnails and titles to be non-clickbait.

[fer0n]

Happy to hear you like it :)

As you probably know, SponsorBlock is already used to enhance chapters and regular ads don't show up (I frankly don't even know why as I've done nothing to actively block them). That is the furthest I'm willing to go regarding interfering with ads and sponsorships.

Replacing the thumbnails I'd be fine with, but I personally don't see a lot of value in, especially since you only see manually added videos or those from channels you specifically follow.

[rodalpho]

Re sponsorblock, sorry to hear that. Of course it is your choice, but I will personally continue using safari with the sponsorblock extension myself as I find it essential.

Dearrow is more of a cosmetic thing, many people find clickbait thumbnails and titles annoying, and it uses user-submitted ones to replace.

[fer0n]

Just to double check, do you know that you can already enable SponsorBlock chapters? It needs some improvements on iOS 18, but you should be able to manually uncheck the chapters you want to skip, including Sponsor segments.

[rodalpho]

Yes, I’m aware. Manually skipping is not what I personally want.

[notDavid]

@fer0n Agreed, Sponsorblock is a must have... is there any reason not to include it?

[fer0n]

Just to clarify again, SponsorBlock is already supported. It simply doesn't do anything automatically, but you can uncheck the sponsor segments ahead of time, just like you can with any other chapter.

That's currently as far as I'm willing to go. Not that Unwatched is big enough to endanger anyone, but I don't want to actively take something away that YouTube channels rely on to keep making videos. Regular ads don't show up for technical reasons, I'm not doing anything to actively block them either.

[notDavid]

but I don't want to actively take something away that YouTube channels rely on to keep making videos.

Thank you for your reply @fer0n , okay of course i respect that choice :-)

PS. off-topic

Personally I've always had a Premium YouTube account, but cancelled it when Google started showing me Ads & sponsoring **even while paying for a premium account**. I happily contribute to content creators, but i'm not willing to go this far and make a Big Tech company that has $2.000 trillion USD, even richer. Google is exploiting/extorting content creators, and abusing privacy of its users to achieve this...

[fer0n]

I'm assuming creators get all of the money or at least a bigger cut when doing their own sponsorships. When you're paying for premium I think you also shouldn't see any sponsorships, so that's a fair point. Perhaps there's a way to detect if someone has a premium subscription and enable an auto skip in that case.

What I'd be more inclined to add is a more general chapter filter that would let you filter e.g. based on the chapter title and perhaps the chapter type. I don't have any immediate plans for that, though.

[fer0n]

I'm considering adding auto skip after confirming a premium subscription which supports creators in a different way – I think that's something I can get behind.

I don't see a way to actually detect an active premium subscription, so it'll probably have to be on a trust basis.

[rodalpho]

That would work for me. I do subscribe to YouTube premium as well as many creators' Patreons. I just don't want to see ads, ever, under any circumstances.

[fer0n]

It's on the most recent TestFlight version if you want to check it out. I'm still undecided if it'll stick around, though.