YouTube Music rolls out Now Playing redesign with YT comments [U: Official]

Abner Li | Sep 1 2023 - 8:25 am PT

After pulling a variant at the start of this year, YouTube Music is rolling out the latest redesign of Now Playing on Android and iOS, adding a comments section. This follows the launch of real-time lyrics last week.

Update 9/1: As of Friday, we’re seeing a pretty wide rollout of the Now Playing redesign. TeamYouTube made it official yesterday afternoon, and described it as “comments hav[ing] a new home on the @YouTubeMusic mobile app.”

you can now read, create and engage with comments on songs, videos & podcast episodes

The in-app prompt announcing the addition says it will let you “Connect with other fans and share your thoughts.”

Original 8/30: Cover art is now slightly larger with more steeply rounded corners and a higher position on the page, while song and artist names are left-aligned. The last redesign dates back to 2020. Meanwhile, the play/pause button and Song/Video switcher are now white instead of being themed.

The big change is a carousel with pill-shaped buttons for thumbs up/down, comments, Save (add to playlist), Share, Download, and Radio. Previously, four of those actions were hidden by default and required that you tap the artwork. A tap still darkens the cover art and lets you go fullscreen (from the bottom-right corner).

Top comment by vcat

Liked by 56 people

it kinda fascinates me that they don't want to work on these most requested features and instead think we need a comment section on the now playing screen

View all comments

This new design places more controls at the bottom of Now Playing for improved reach, while all other options remain in the overflow menu.

Comment access is new, bringing the ability to read and write them. The panel that slides up is borrowed from the main YouTube client and adds an interesting social element to YTM that was previously limited to playlists.

As of this afternoon, this Now Playing redesign with comments is starting to roll out more widely on YouTube Music for Android after first entering testing in June. However, we’re not yet seeing it on all devices. (Try force-stopping YouTube Music from the App info page.)

It’s also appearing on iOS today, which still uses the old miniplayer and not the permanent version. The last redesign took over a year to arrive on the iPhone.