YouTube Music finally rolls out ‘Speed dial’ redesign of ‘Listen again’

Abner Li | Oct 28 2024 - 8:15 am PT

Just over a year after it was previewed, YouTube Music for Android and iOS have finally replaced “Listen again” with a new “Speed dial” section.

Instead of a 10×2 carousel that only showed 6 works per screen, you now get a 3×3 grid across three pages — dots at the bottom note where you are — for a total of 27 songs, albums, artists (circular artwork), and playlists.

Tapping on a track starts playback with users remaining in the Home feed as Now Playing doesn’t launch. You can also long-press to access the overflow menu.

Active songs are highlighted by a white outline, while everything else just opens the album, artist, or playlist page. If there’s a chevron/arrow after the name that’s overlaid on the bottom edge, it will not start playing immediately.

Old vs. new

YouTube Music has been testing and evolving Speed dial over the past 12 months, with the bump from 9 to 27 being the biggest change from the announcement to address how it was not as efficient as Listen again, which is how a lot of people interact with YTM. The goal is to “help you quickly explore and listen to the songs and artists you’ve got on repeat.”

As of Monday morning, we’re seeing YouTube Music’s new Speed dial widely rolled out on Android and iOS. Refresh the Home tab or Force stop YTM from App info. There are no changes to music.youtube.com today, while the Android tablet UI still uses Listen again.