Google’s list of YouTube Music features launched in April and May is now available. We’ve already covered the major changes, but there are several smaller YouTube Music tweaks to the radio and shuffle.
As of April, longer YouTube Music playlists on Android and when Casting are no longer un-shuffled after several songs. Similarly, the team last month “fixed an uncommon but very visible issue where you were repeatedly recommended the same artists” in radios.
We also made some updates that try to capture how attentive you are to the listening experience, so that we can better serve lean-back listening (so you don’t have to actively keep finding the next great song to play yourself!). These updates not only improve the radio experience on YouTube Music but also how we recommend music mixes on YouTube main. More about this at our YouTube forum!
When searching for songs, YouTube Music now shows a “More from YouTube” shelf that surfaces “live and acoustic versions, remixes and popular covers alongside the official version.” This particular change is meant to particularly emphasize YouTube’s catalog advantage:
We hope this change gives you a lot more listening options, beyond what you’d see on other music streaming services.
Early last month, the Focus and Relax moods added a “Long listening” shelf to let you “easily find high-quality music videos for longer listening sessions when you’re trying to concentrate on a task or decompress. This appears at the very bottom of those feeds and is coming to other activity filters “in the future.”
Other new changes include:
- Adding user-created playlists to recommendations
- Improved experience for new users: better initial artist selection and Quick Picks welcome shelf
- Recommended music shelf on YouTube app for TVs without having to open the YouTube Music tab
Google also expanded on how the fantastic “Listen again” shelf redesign “combines both your recent listening and all-time favorites in one place.” Other features we already covered:
- “Suggested” devices in Cast menu
- Playlist UI redesign on tablets [Update: Coming to phones]
- Wear OS Wi-Fi and LTE streaming
- Wear OS “Recently Played” tile
- Refreshes “Mixed for you” covers with album art and artist profiles
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