Android 12 brings a renewed focus on widgets with Google Photos and Clock — just this week — serving as key examples. YouTube Music is working on a Material You widget, and we’ve enabled a preview of it.

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Back in the third quarter of 2020, Google said it had 30 million YouTube Premium and Music Premium subscribers. YouTube Music now has over 50 million paid customers.

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We went hands-on with the long-awaited release of YouTube Music for Wear OS earlier week, and while the app certainly gets the job done, it comes with the requirement for Wear OS 3. Unfortunately, that’s a restriction that can’t be easily overcome, either.

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It’s been nearly a year since Google pulled the plug on Play Music in favor of YouTube Music, and in the time since, Wear OS has been left without an official way to tie into Google’s streaming music service. Now, YouTube Music is finally available for download on Wear OS.

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In recent months, YouTube Music has seen a slew of tweaks that refine the app but don’t fundamentally change the experience. That’s par for the course at Google, but what’s been incredibly odd is how the YouTube Music team has not meaningfully talked about any of these new features until last week.

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Back in June, YouTube Music for Android got a redesigned Now Playing UI that did a great deal to help modernize the streaming service, and it’s now finally coming to iPhones.

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In recent months, search has been one area of YouTube Music that Google has been constantly iterating on with tweaks and additional capabilities. The YouTube Music Android app now lets you search songs and albums that you’ve locally downloaded.

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The future is much brighter for Wear OS thanks to revamped software and much better hardware, but current watches are left in a weird state of limbo. Today, Google has revealed that its new apps for YouTube Music and Google Maps on Wear OS are coming out very soon, but they won’t come to older models.

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YouTube Music has the fairly standard concept of adding works to your library. Those saves are sorted and can be found through the Playlist, Albums, Songs, and Artists views, but YouTube Music is now testing a “Library” search filter.

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At the start of this week, Google made the Material You redesign of the Wear OS Play Store official. Alongside that, Google Play on Android phones was also updated with easier install and search filters. Thanks to the Play Store, along with the latest app update, we get a very quick and minor peek at YouTube Music for Wear OS.

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One of YouTube Music’s oldest (and best) features is an “Offline Mixtape” that can be quickly played on Android. Over the course of today, the app shortcut has disappeared for users.

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In addition to testing a “Library” filter, YouTube Music might be getting a “Downloads” tab in search that would address a big complaint about how the application handles content stored offline.

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YouTube, which calls itself a “Google company,” has its own branding and design direction that’s independent from the broader organization. YouTube Studio is now getting a new icon that shares some similarity to YouTube Music.

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YouTube Music has been putting more focus on its algorithmic auto-playlists as of late, having renamed its iconic “Your Mix” playlist and introduced seven new daily mixes in the past year. In addition to these, a new “Replay Mix” is now appearing for many YouTube Music users that includes their most commonly played songs from the past “few weeks.”

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YouTube Music has been available on Android Auto for quite some time and has been updated along with the platform to revise its visuals and more. Now, the app is getting one of its biggest redesigns, with YouTube Music on Android Auto adding navigation tabs and more.

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In an update today, YouTube revealed that it paid $4 billion to the music industry over the last 12 months, while Premium and Music Premium subscriptions saw notable growth at the start of this year. 

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At I/O 2021, Google announced that its wearable platform would do a better job of highlighting first-party services, among other tentpoles. This includes YouTube Music, Google Maps, Pay, and Assistant, with a brief preview of those Wear OS apps provided today.

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When listening to songs in the YouTube mobile client, Google will occasionally prompt users to open the YouTube Music app for a better experience. The main YouTube app is now testing a dedicated “Listening controls” experience for music.

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In February, Google said its streaming service would add “even more” playlist creation features and increase discoverability of those user-generated collections. That has so far been the only app roadmap provided by the company this year. YouTube Music is now implementing those plans in search by distinguishing between Featured and Community playlists.

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The criticism of YouTube Music, especially from Google Play Music users, is that it bizarrely lacks basic features. One of those is the ability to repeat songs while Casting, though that has finally just been added to YouTube Music on Android.

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Following a brief test earlier this week on the main website, YouTube Music for Android is now beginning to more widely see outline-style icons. 

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At the start of December, the Google Play Music website and mobile apps officially stopped working for all users worldwide. It marked the biggest milestone in the transition to YouTube Music, but there is one last step. Before February 24th, transfer your Play Music library to the replacement YouTube service, or download using Google Takeout.

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As of last year, downloading certain apps from the Play Store on Chrome OS would automatically “install” the Progressive Web App. The latest service to follow this PWA approach is YouTube Music, though Google is taking a circuitous route with a separate Chromebook listing.

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While we’re well into the new year, YouTube Music looks to be taking another stab at giving users a 2020 Year in Review. Hopefully, this iteration will be widely rolled out.

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Like autoplay on the main video site, YouTube Music is good at recommending similar songs to listen to next. YouTube Music is now surfacing “Start radio” right on the main Now Playing interface.

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The general layout of YouTube Music has remained largely the same since its 2018 relaunch, but a small change online and on Android sees Google tweak the background theme.

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As we have now seen the much-loved Google Music bite the dust in recent weeks, YouTube Music has added yet another notable but frustrating feature in the form of animated video previews when scrolling your music feed.

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After generating a straightforward playlist with top songs, YouTube Music is now emailing subscribers a “Your 2020 music journey” recap complete with listening stats and other breakdowns.

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Those that don’t pay for YouTube Music are either using it for the cloud locker or as a lighter YouTube client just for songs. Free YouTube Music users are now seeing a prominent “Upgrade” tab in the bottom bar.

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Following Spotify Wrapped and Apple Music Replay, YouTube Music’s 2020 Year in Review is officially rolling out today. It’s a relatively straightforward playlist featuring the “songs you listened to the most this year.” 

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YouTube Music looks to be joining its competitors in offering a “Year in Review” playlist to “relive the top songs you listened to.”

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As Play Music nears deprecation, Google continues to update its successor with more and more features. YouTube Music is now working on Snapchat and Instagram story sharing, but the functionality is not yet live.

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With the Play Music deprecation underway, YouTube Music continues its onslaught of new features. YouTube Music today is rolling out high-level filters that let you customize the homepage, as well as six “My Mixes.”

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Back in February, Google provided an update on YouTube Music/Premium and YouTube TV subscribers. During Q3 2020 earnings, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced 30 million, ad-free paying members and another million for the cord-cutting service.

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Depending on your usage habits, the close integration between YouTube and YouTube Music is either a blessing or a curse. Google is now working on a YouTube Music setting to separate liked videos.

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As we careen toward the inevitable death of Google Play Music proper, features are crashing toward YouTube Music in an attempt to make it a viable alternative. The latest is the ability to sort playlists, songs, and albums alphabetically on the desktop or browser version of YouTube Music.

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Ahead of the Play Music shutdown, Google has been working to add key functionality to the YouTube-based alternative, especially for free users. The YouTube Music app for Android Auto now works to play uploaded tracks.

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