YouTube Music
To show off the quality of its new Nest Audio speaker that we reviewed in October, Google has just released a collection of exclusive acoustic recordings, “Nest Audio Sessions,” from popular artists on YouTube Music.
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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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After a big update last week introduced new My Mixes and homepage “moods,” YouTube Music is rolling out a carousel of “Quick picks” to instantaneously generate a radio playlist.
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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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For the past several weeks, Google’s primary streaming service has been A/B testing a number of changes to its personalized playlists. YouTube Music is now going ahead with another that renames “Your Mix” to “My Supermix.”
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Since the release of iOS 14 earlier this year, Google has been impressing us all with gorgeous new home screen widgets for its apps. YouTube Music is now the latest Google app to get iOS 14 widgets, showing your recently played music in a gorgeous design.
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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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With streaming music being the norm now, just about every major service offers a family plan so everyone can enjoy it at a discounted rate. With YouTube Music, though, family plans get complicated for younger kids, and there’s no fix in sight either.
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The drawn-out death of Google Play Music and janky transition to YouTube Music is set to get a little easier as it appears that free users are now able to download playlists containing previously migrated or uploaded music.
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Google Play Music will soon be shut down, pushing its users to either YouTube Music or to switch to another provider entirely. Parts of Play Music have been closing for a few weeks, and now, Google Assistant speakers are losing support.
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To follow a big Android TV update yesterday, Google has just released an Apple Watch app for YouTube Music. It provides basic playback controls and browsing of what’s on your phone.
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Back in July, YouTube Music came to Android TV via the main YouTube app and a homescreen shortcut. The YouTube Music experience on big screen platforms, including Google TV, is getting an upgrade today that makes it more on par with the web and mobile clients.
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Like it or not, Google Play Music is on the way out, with YouTube Music becoming Google’s only music streaming service. To help match Google Play Music’s capabilities, YouTube Music’s free tier can now cast uploaded music to smart speakers.
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YouTube Music continues its flurry of new features by adding global top charts to the Explore tab. That second section in the bottom bar launched earlier this year to replace the video-focused Hotlist.
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Google Play Music is set to stop working for users around the world starting this month. YouTube Music continues to add legacy features to ease the transition, with Google Assistant now working to play personal playlists.
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Besides introducing an “Explore” tab earlier this year, Google’s primary — and soon only — streaming service has remained visually unchanged since the 2018 revamp. YouTube Music is now testing high-level filters for the Home feed of recommendations.
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The constant evolution of YouTube Music continues with new features being added and tested at a quick pace. One of the latest new YouTube Music features looks to be a very Spotify-inspired daily “My Mix” selection of daily playlists that will segment into sub-genres and sections.
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Song identification stalwart Shazam has long been an essential for music discovery and sometimes just remembering that annoying earworm that you can’t quite pinpoint. For Shazam users though, it’s probably great to hear that you can now listen to identified tracks in YouTube Music.
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As the death of Play Music quickly approaches, Google has been moving customers over to YouTube Music. Of course, the company also wants new subscribers for the service, so you’ll find ads for YouTube Music throughout YouTube and other Google products. One of those ads, though, has a hilarious gaffe — it links to a random YouTuber’s channel.
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