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.
Expand Expanding Close
The latest updates to YouTube Music sees the web client tweak carousels and how you navigate them, while the service is trying a “Forgotten favorites” shelf to highlight your past listens.
Expand Expanding Close
YouTube Music was one of the Android apps that Google said would get tablet optimizations at I/O 2022, and the redesigned playlist interface is now live.
Expand Expanding Close
More than other streaming services, YouTube Music is defined by its algorithmic suggestions on what to listen to next. This feature is great in the Up Next queue but downright annoying in the Home feed. YouTube Music constantly juggles the order, if not the outright appearance, of carousels from one refresh to the next.
Expand Expanding Close
At the start of this year, YouTube Music updated its Home feed for tablets and promised that more UI optimizations are coming, especially for playlists. One smaller change sees YouTube Music offer an improved settings layout on Android.
Expand Expanding Close
Like the main Android client, Google is now offering Play Store betas for YouTube Music and TV to presumably test new features ahead of time.
Expand Expanding Close
Google’s Cast standard has been around for quite some time and, at this point, it’s not uncommon for someone to own a hefty handful of compatible speakers and displays. To help surface the device you might be looking for, Google appears to be testing “Suggested” Cast devices.
Update: This post has been updated to reflect new details from Google.
Expand Expanding Close
In addition to a new Recently Played tile, YouTube Music for Wear OS will soon let you stream songs over data/cellular instead of having to download songs, albums, or playlists ahead of time.
Expand Expanding Close
Since 2019, the main YouTube app has offered to open song videos in YouTube Music, but this integration is now getting much more prominent.
Expand Expanding Close
As we previously spotted, YouTube Music’s ‘Recently Played’ Wear OS tile is now available to let you quickly start listening to a previous album/song on your watch.
Expand Expanding Close
Playlists are undoubtedly a big part of YouTube Music’s discovery angle, and Google is now testing a big UI redesign for them on mobile.
Expand Expanding Close
Since its inception in 2015 (and the 2018 relaunch), YouTube Music has only ever offered a dark theme, but the Android and iOS apps are now adding a splash of color to liven things up.
Expand Expanding Close
YouTube Music is breaking up the visual monotony of the Home feed on Android and iOS with a new grid design for the “Listen again” shelf.
Expand Expanding Close
In April of 2020, YouTube Music replaced “Hotlist” with the “Explore” tab. A small addition that’s presented as a new way to access Explore more or less obviates its position in the bottom bar.
Expand Expanding Close
The automatically curated My Mix section sometimes labeled “Mixed for you” in YouTube Music appears to be getting updated cover art for some users.
Expand Expanding Close
YouTube Music has long been able to automatically download songs “based on your previous listening history” so that you always have a fresh collection of things to listen to when offline. A small YouTube Music tweak sees smart downloads get a new sparkle icon.
Expand Expanding Close
YouTube Music recently added an Explore shelf to the bottom of the Home feed that makes the dedicated page largely redundant. That said, YouTube Music’s latest addition of an album carousel to Explore suggests that the tab will stick around.
Expand Expanding Close
Google’s list of developments to YouTube Music in February and March is here and includes some notable additions (like to the radio algorithm) that weren’t already spotted.
Expand Expanding Close
After first launching for iOS at the start of this year, YouTube Music is widely rolling out the “Save” queue to playlist feature on Android.
Expand Expanding Close
In March of last year, YouTube Music widely rolled out the ability to shuffle songs when Casting but bafflingly didn’t also enable repeat. As of today, that latter action is available again.
Expand Expanding Close
It seems that Google’s music service, YouTube Music, is currently experiencing issues with casting music to Chromecast, Google TV, and Android TV devices.
Expand Expanding Close
The first indication that YouTube Music might be able to share songs to Instagram and Snapchat emerged in November of 2020. Snapchat sharing finally launched for YouTube Music on iOS in October and it’s now coming to Android.
Expand Expanding Close
After testing for some time, YouTube Music is finally bringing the song/video switcher to the Now Playing UI of the web client.
Expand Expanding Close
After rolling out a redesigned “Add to playlist” UI, YouTube Music is adding a “From your library” section to artist pages that is similar to something that was found in Google Play Music.
Expand Expanding Close
